INTERIORS INSPIRED BY NATURE
Design Rooted In Nature
Taking The Outside In
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DESIGN ROOTED IN
NATURE
At a Paris fleamarket, I came across an image in a vintage magazine of a roof terrace, designed by modernist architect Le Corbusier for the eccentric aristocrat and lavish party host, Charles deBeistegui. Under a blue open sky, the terrace is set up like a formal living room, with a rococo fireplace, a parrot on a stand, and a lush carpet of wild grass.
It’s now widely circulated, but the first time I saw it, it was like a bolt of lightning. The combination of drawing room elegance and wild irreverence stuck a deep chord in me — that sense of wonder from my childhood applied to interior design — and has been one of my primary creative influences. The elements of my inspiration are drawn from these experiences, the surreal sparkle of these clashing worlds.
From the primitive fairly-tale forest to the glamorous bohemian party scene, and the many discovered worlds — familiar and exotic — in between. Like all design-ers, my process involves combining showrooms, flea markets and galleries, collaborating with artisans, and putting together schemes for a space. But what it feels like to me is planting my feet in the earth, drawing on the elements with whispered incantations, and conquering magic.
“For me, Nature is about
enchantment, mystery, and
effortless beauty. ”
-Fawn Galli.
All Images Interiors By Fawn Galli.
A room should awaken the senses, like a shock of icy water, a flash of sunlight through the trees, a crackling fire. Like a glimpse, out of the corner of your eye, of a fawn leaping through the trees.I spent my childhood running free in nature, barefoot and wild. In the forest of Northern California where I grew up, the ground was covered with sequoia needles and alder leaves.
My father taught me to carve pictures onto the soft skin of mushroom caps. The ones I marked became like friendsI would run into unexpectedly along my travels. In the fields of upstate New York where we moved next, toadstools were placed by a seemingly endless supply of wildflowers brought home in great bundles. Snowflakes in the winter, dried leaves and branches in the fall, fresh buds in spring. The log cabin my stepfather built was heated by a wood-burning stove
and surrounded by blueberry bushes and fields of wildflowers and meadow grasses extending from the woods. For me, nature is about enchantment, mystery, and effortless beauty. Nobody is chicer than nature when it comes to mixing texture, pattern, and style. Animals, butterflies, birds, and trees — the more peacock feathers, the better. I would love nothing more than a real bird’s nest embedded in a plastermolding, or walls papered in actual flowers. Lucky for my clients there are other ways to bring nature in.
Central Park West By Fawn Galli.
The Dream (Rousseau).
