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FALL 2012
celebratedliving.com
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DESIGN
Dining Design
The blooming ceiling at Lilium
experience, and theyarealsogood for the room’s
acoustics, saysRobin. Instead, thedesigner focused
on creatinga lesspompous,moreorganicexperi-
ence—anextensionof the restaurant’snew farm-
freshTuscan cuisine— “withoutmaking it all too
Birkenstock,” she says. Toaccomplish the task, she
addedamoeba-shapedmirrors insteadof art “to
put thepeopleondisplay,” cerusedoakwoods (a
whiteoverlay that givesagrayish, beachy tone),
andeight larger-than-life linen-covered chandeliers
to soften the room. “Iwas trying tobringdown
the ceilingabit because it’squitehighandalso
because I thinkpeople lookbetter lit under lamp-
shades,” she says.
Just theoppositeproblem facedGullaJonsdottirof
WestHollywood-basedG+Designwhen she took
on the taskof conceiving thenewLiliumbar inside
thebasement of theWUnionSquarehotel inNew
York. The 1,600-square-foot subterranean space—
formerly theUnderbarwith its coffered ceilings
and closed cabanas—was confinedandhad low
ceilings, “sowhat doyoudo?Youmake it bloom,”
saysJonsdottir,who covered the ceiling inamas-
sivewater jet-cut steel forest of lilies, her favorite
flower. “It’shard-meets-soft anddesign-meets-
creation fromgodwithabit of rock ’n’ roll thrown
in forgoodmeasure,” saysJonsdottir,whosework
spans thegamut fromRichardMeier’sGettyCenter
inLosAngeles to thehighly thematicTokyoDisney
SeasasamemberofWaltDisney’s Imagineering
team.WithLilium, “I liked this ideaof peoplewalk-
ingdown the stairsand thinking ‘what theheck.’
Bymixingan installationwitharchitecture the
roombecamemore thananightclub, it became
somethingof artistic space,”addsJonsdottir, not-
inghow thewholedining/entertainingexperience
today “iskindof a journeyof the senses.”
