A good product needs the right setting. Such is the optical salon designed by {tag:pracownie}. Inside - Bodyych brand frames, created since 1981 by Andrzej Bodych. Check out the interior of the unusual salon at 26a Pulawska Street in Old Mokotow, Warsaw.
Although Bodyych eyeglasses are known all over Poland, until now they could be bought mainly in private optical salons, during fairs or at the atelier of Andrzej Bodych in Konstancin-Jeziorna. The designer's frames appeal to the tastes of celebrities, artists and lovers of fashion and design, all thanks to their bold, colorful and unconventional design. Such is also the interior of the new Bodyych showroom in Warsaw, designed by Tomasz and Monika Pągowski.
Bodyych optical salon
Photo: Monika Pągowska © Pągowski Studio
gesamtkunstwerk binding
The Bodyych optical salon is an example of a total project. Nothing here is accidental, as the interior was created in cooperation with the client, or rather the partner - as Tomasz Pągowski, the author of the arrangement, describes it. For the character of the interior corresponds to the style of the brand created by Andrzej Bodych, which offers customers frames in shapes and colors far beyond the classics of the genre. Thick frames with unusual forms and designs have been created by Andrzej Bodych for more than 40 years. During this time he has grown into one of the most important designers in the industry, and his products are eagerly chosen by celebrities and other personalities - they are worn by Jurek Owsiak, Malgorzata Walewska, Bryan Adams or Tomasz Lubert. In turn, during his lifetime, Bodyych glasses landed on the noses of Kora or Leszek Kolakowski, among others.
Bodyych optical salon
Photo: Monika Pągowska © Pągowski Studio
mirror tricks
The designers didn't have much space to work with, which actually raised the scale of the challenge, as the 25-square-meter space had to be optimized to the maximum. This was achieved thanks to the appropriate layout of the interior, as well as an innocent optical "trick". This solution was the placement of a large number of mirrors on the walls of the living room, which optically enlarged the space - a trick already widely used in Baroque architecture(vide the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, designed by Charles Le Brun), but requiring proper sensitivity and care not to create a mirror trap with a blurred spatial logic. In this case, that effect is out of the question. A small back room, meanwhile, is hidden behind a heavy blue curtain that stretches from the ceiling all the way to the floors.
Bodyych optical salon
Photo: Monika Pągowska © Pągowski Studio
interior in blue
Bodyych Optical Salon is an interior that has been "tailor-made":
The investor is an extremely vivacious person, and the frames he produces are characterized by bold colors and shapes. We knew that it should be an interior with character, but sparing in colors. By means of selection, we determined that the dominant color, best reflecting the owner's emanation, is blue.
- write the architects.
The choice of color was probably much less subjective in this case than it might seem - those familiar with the character of Mr. Andrew Bodych will note that he himself most often wears frames precisely in the color of blue.
Bodyych optical salon
Photo: Monika Pągowska © Pągowski Studio
accent in imperial colors
The complementary color is burgundy - here the inspiration can be found rather in the building where the Bodyych salon is located. The interior is located on the first floor of a 1938 building, designed in modernist style by Zdzislaw Mączyński. On the axis of the vitrine-filled first floor is a representative entrance, lined with porphyry sculptures by Jozef Below, depicting caryatids and allegories of the four seasons. It is the color of porphyry, a material with imperial connotations, that flows into the interior of Andrew Bodych's optical salon.
Bodych optical salon
Photo: Monika Pągowska © Pągowski Studio
We opted for maroon, which made its way into all the historic elements and the new window sills. With the same key, for better proportions, all the contours of the elements coming out of the wall planes got the same frame plus a corner shelf, and the color clip became the elements of the table structure.
- write the creators of the Bodyych salon arrangement.
Bodyych optical salon
Photo: Monika Pągowska © Pągowski Studio
living room "all around"
In the Bodyych living room you won't see too many right angles - instead, they are dominated by curves, which have their source in the architecture of the ship style, a variety of modernism popular in Poland in the 1930s. Rounded (or rounded!) are therefore the mirrors, a wall lamp fitting deftly into one of the walls, arched wall panels and some furniture, such as the table located in the center of the room, with an oval top and massive leg, reminiscent of a column. The composition of furniture and detail on the south wall seems to be not accidental - a skilled (or too hasty to conclude) eye will notice there a shape reminiscent of frames that have fallen on the nose.
Bodyych optical salon
Photo: Monika Pągowska © Pągowski Studio
[...] of the tables we are so proud that we plan to implement a collection based on several color variants. What makes the effect in the detail is the new quality of the construction material we have developed, namely the MFP building board. For more than 2 years we have been successfully testing and creating unique furniture from it in our program, and each time we are enchanted by the effect of "wood-based terrazzo" - that's what we called it.
- explain the designers.
Bodyych optical salon
Photo: Monika Pągowska © Pągowski Studio
The crowning glory of the interior is the chandelier hanging above the table in the form of - not unlike - a twisted neon sign.