Golden era

When Marie Soliman redesigned this Mayfair apartment, she dipped into its glamorous past but then brought those art deco references right up to date with contemporary twists

- Jo Leevers

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THE DESIGNER

Marie Soliman, designer and co-founder of Bergman Interiors, redesigned this apartment for Waleed AlMarzooq, founder of Premier Estates Investments.

THE PROPERTY

A fourth-floor apartment in a 1929 building in Mayfair, central London. There is an open-plan living room with kitchen-diner, two bedrooms (both en suite) and a WC.

We took the art deco identity of this building and reinterpreted it in a contemporary way,’ says Marie Soliman of this apartment home that’s all about luxury and longevity. It’s on the fourth floor of a handsome building dating from 1929 and while it had retained plenty of period flourishes, it was hampered by a dated and impractical layout. ‘There was a very skinny kitchen near the front door, separate living and dining rooms at the other end of the apartment and, bizarrely, the only bathroom led off the dining room,’ remembers Marie.

Her solution was to remove a dividing wall to create an open-plan living space, where tall windows look down on the Mayfair setting, and carve out en suites for the two bedrooms, plus a chic WC. While a more practical layout was the starting point for her redesign, it’s the way that textures and colours are layered, then subtly repeated, that makes this home feel truly cohesive.