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Interior design in 2025 will honour the century-old principles of art deco, favouring statement objects made to last in a departure from the neutral minimalism that characterised last year, designers tell Dezeen. More
Dim lighting and dark tones define the interiors of the second Smith & Mills restaurant in New York, recently completed by architecture studio Woods Bagot.
Situated in New York’s Rockefeller Center, the restaurant’s interiors were designed by Woods Bagot in collaboration with New York City-based hospitality management consultancy Neighborhood Projects.
To enter the space, guests walk through a snug hallway covered with vintage elevator-cab panels.
Architecture studio Woods Bagot has completed the Smith & Mills restaurant in New York”It was very important to us that we created a transition zone off the concourse before you enter the main dining room,” explained Wood Bagot’s Krista Ninivaggi.
“This would act as a buffer to feel the buzz of the heart of Rock Center diminish, and then be enveloped in our warm amber glow.”
“We achieved this by using old wrought iron elevator cab screens to partition off the entry and lowering the ceiling for a classic design move of compression before being ‘released’ into the carefully crafted atmosphere of the restaurant,” she continued.
To enter the space, guests walk through a hallway covered with vintage elevator-cab panelsColumns clad in zellige tiles and mirrors divide the space, while antique-style mirrors on the walls and reclaimed wood panelling were used to create a vintage feel in the restaurant, which is the second Smith & Mills to open in the city.
“We used the reclaimed panelling and zellige tile to ‘paint’ all of the wall surfaces,” Ninivaggi explained. “We alternated them in key locations by deciding what should feel ‘warm’ with the wood or ‘hard’ with the tile.”
An oval bar made of zinc and walnut is also featuredAn oval bar made of zinc and walnut, which sits on a tiled black stone floor, functions as the restaurant’s focal point.
In the dining area, the studio chose banquette seating dressed in oxblood velvet in a nod to the restaurant’s original location in New York’s Tribeca neighbourhood. Marble tables with brass accents and bistro chairs complement the design.
Banquette seating in the restaurant is dressed in oxblood velvetThe interior of the restaurant’s private dining room features a transition from handmade red zellige tiles sourced from Morocco on one wall to a botanical print wall covering above.
Lighting fixtures, such as pendants and sconces, cast ambient lighting throughout the space. Artwork by Ukrainian artist Yelena Yemchuk hangs on the walls.
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“The lighting was very carefully considered both in its design and light quality, to give the appropriate hue to the space,” Neighborhood Projects’ Matt Abramcyk told Dezeen.
“We went so far as to undertake tests to find the right vinyl to veil the light from the concourse to give a warm backdrop,” he continued.
Pendants and sconces provide ambient lighting throughout the spaceThe location of the new restaurant also had a big influence on the design.
“At both locations, Smith & Mills strives for simple, rustic design, with materials that nod to the past,” Abramcyk concluded. “Because of the new location’s iconic surroundings, the Rockefeller Center design also nods to art deco, in particular.”
Other restaurant interiors recently featured on Dezeeen include a Korean fried chicken restaurant in New York designed by Rockwell Group and a cocktail lounge in Las Vegas created by musician Bruno Mars in collaboration with design studio Yabu Pushelberg.
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American hotel brand Bunkhouse and interior design studio Reurbano have used motifs derived from the history of a Mexico City structure when converting it into a boutique hotel.
Hotel San Fernando is located in the Condesa neighbourhood of Mexico City, a largely residential zone that in recent years has seen an influx of national and international travellers.
Bunkhouse and Reurbano have converted a 1940s apartment building into a boutique hotel in Mexico CityBunkhouse worked with local interior design studio Reurbano to take a 1940s apartment building and convert it into a 19-room hotel, with finishes informed by the neighbourhood.
The face of the structure was restored and painted a light green, with darker green used on the awnings that provide coverage for seating attached to the hotel’s lobby and restaurant, which open to the street through glass-paned French doors.
It features renovated spaces that maintain details of the original structureAn art deco-style logo spells out the name of the hotel above the door. Saint Fernando is known as the patron saint of engineers, and the team wanted to highlight this by maintaining the name of the original building in the branding of the new structure.
“We wanted to honour this building,” said Bunkhouse senior vice president of design Tenaya Hills.
“We love the story and the history and like to imagine what it has been for people over the decades.”
A spiral staircase leads from the lobby to the rooftopThis primary entrance features a metal door with glass panes informed by the original stained glass of the building.
The entry corridor leads past a lobby lounge, with lighting by Oaxaca studio Oaxifornia and furnishings by local gallery Originario; and design studios Daniel Y Catalina, and La Metropolitana, which also created custom furniture for all of the guest suites.
At the far end of the lobby lounge is the restaurant’s bar, which features a large semi-circular cabinet with mirrored back to hold the spirits. A chandelier by local sculptor Rebeca Cors hangs above the clay-clad bar.
French doors feature at the entrance and on some of the roomsThe entrance corridor has green encaustic concrete tiles from the original building. Other original details include the wainscotting and casement windows.
A reception area is located at the end of the corridor and behind it is a circular staircase with metal-and-wood railing that leads all the way up through the building, with landings on each of its five floors, terminating at a terrace on top of the building.
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The guest rooms range from single-room setups to multi-room suites, the largest of which are accessed through French doors with opaque windows.
Here the studio departed from the greens used on the exterior and the lobby and utilised soft orange, pink and white paints.
Light colours and hand-crafted goods fill the roomsFloors in the rooms are either tile or wood and furniture made from light-coloured wood is covered by locally derived textiles. Three rooms on the rooftop level feature furniture designed by Bunkhouse and fabricated by local design outfit B Collective Studio.
Pendant lamps and sconces by local ceramicist Anfora are found in the kitchens and bathrooms.
The rooftop features sculptural breeze blocksThe rooftop features a tiled dining and lounge area surrounded by sculptural breeze blocks, designed to mimic the original building’s patterned stained glass.
Mexican design studios Mexa and Comité de Proyectos contributed furniture pieces for the rooftop.
Other hotels in Mexico include a tile-clad structure in San Miguel de Allende by Productora and Esrawe Studio and a hotel in Mexico City with wooden lattices by PPAA.
The photography is by Chad Wadsworth.
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Local architecture studio RA! took cues from Latin American art deco design when creating the tiny interior of Los Alexis, a small taqueria in Mexico City’s Roma Norte neighbourhood.
Los Alexis is a taco eatery – or taqueria – in Roma, a famed district in Mexico City, which features examples of art deco architecture.
Los Alexis is a small taqueriaRA! drew on the “vibrant personality” of the area when designing the single 15-square-metre room restaurant, housed within a former beer depository.
“One of the most important requests of our client was for this tiny space to shine among the rest of the retail premises on the street,” said studio co-founder and designer Pedro Ramírez de Aguilar.
RA! clad the floors and walls in a mosaic of broken tilesRA! clad the walls and floors in a distinctive mosaic of broken ceramic tiles with green joints as an ode to Barcelona, where chef Alexis Ayala spent time training, the designer told Dezeen.
A curved bar finished in slabs of ribbed green material fronts the open kitchen, which is positioned on the right of the small open space.
Utilitarian materials were selected for their resilienceUtilitarian materials, including the tiles, were chosen throughout the restaurant for their “endurance and fast cleaning processes”.
White-painted steel breakfast-style stools line the bar, which has a bartop made of steel – selected for its resistance to grease, according to Ramírez de Aguilar.
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The studio decided to preserve the space’s original, peeling ceiling “to create a wider contrast [within the eatery] and to remember the old premises”.
Informal seating lines the pavement just outside of the taqueria where customers can eat and socialise.
The one-room eatery is defined by its bar and open kitchenOther than a small bathroom at the back of Los Alexis, the one-room restaurant is purposefully defined by its bar and open kitchen.
“Typical ‘changarros’ [small shops] in Mexico City are all about the conversation with the cookers, so we tried to have this interaction between people as a main objective,” explained Ramírez de Aguilar.
Founded in 2017, RA! previously created the interiors for a restaurant in the city’s Polanco neighbourhood with a bar counter shaped like an inverted ziggurat.
DOT Coffee Station is another hole-in-the-wall cafe in Kyiv, Ukraine, which YOD Group designed with a similar floor-to-ceiling mosaic of tiles.
The photography is courtesy of RA!
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Mirror, brass and simple geometries feature inside this Parisian apartment by local architect Clément Lesnoff-Rocard, which offers an understated take on art deco. More
Pastel colours and wicker furniture clash playfully with the leopard print fabrics in this Miami hotel, created by American designer Ken Fulk for musician Pharrell Williams. More
Canadian interiors office Studio Roslyn has created a Vancouver hair salon designed to invoke the mood of 1980s Miami, complete with candy-coloured furniture and nostalgic art deco features. More
