Gilding the Tigerlily - The Scotsman Magazine

1.07.06

There are style bars and then there are bars which are stylish.

Fortunately for Edinburgh, the city’s newest venue looks set to fall firmly into the latter category.

And that’s just the way that the designers of the new bar, restaurant and hotel on George Street want it. The product of 18 months of careful planning, Tigerlily is the seventh venture for Montpeliers (Edinburgh) Ltd which owns a coveted collection of trendy bars in the capital including Rick’s, Indigo Yard and Opal Lounge. And, with the baby of the Montpelier family, it is clear that the design team has had some fun.

It is the sense of humour and flamboyance so evident throughout which takes any pretentious sting out of Tigerlily’s style. “We wanted a bit of bling, a bit of theatre,” says David Johnston, business development manager for Montpeliers and a member of the design team that also included Montpeliers director, Wendy Elliot. “You can’t be afraid to go for it, but as much as we wanted to entertain people we also wanted opulence with accessibility, a place that would be stylish rather than fashionable.”

It was with this brief that they approached the third member of the team – designer Jim Hamilton, from the Glasgow firm Graven Images. “When you’re creating a bar or hotel it is easy to label it as something and decorate it accordingly,” says Hamilton. “With Tigerlily we didn’t want to do that – we wanted to make a new model and create something surprising behind a simple façade.”

This means that, refreshingly, there is none of the hard-edged minimalism, stainless steel and bleached wood associated with so many other bars of its ilk. Instead, there is an eclectic mix of patterns, textures and vibrant colours spread over five storeys of this Georgian terraced townhouse.

With all this space came limitless decorative possibilities but also some challenges. Although the front portion of the building is listed, at the back is an add-on which was constructed in the mid-1980s to house what was a Standard Life office. The team’s first challenge was to work out how to fuse this large, characterless space at the back with the Georgian section at the front of the building.

“We had to deal with the space and form of the building because we were more than capable of dressing it up once we had done that,” Hamilton says. “We had this massive open space at the back which we divided up with a slatted screen that acts as a partition between the restaurant and the bar area. We also created a series of more intimate spaces and seated sections, each with their own concept. This not only adds character to the room as a whole but gives the space flexibility so it can be all things to all people.”

For the design team, flexibility was key. “We did a 24-hour walk-through of the building and considered all the different types of people who would be coming through the doors,” says Hamilton. “From hotel guests to businessmen and fashionable weekenders, we wanted everyone to feel comfortable. We hope there is something to tickle everyone’s fancy and customers can pick the space that appeals to them.”

Just as the old and the new sections of the building have been blended to create something unique, the design team has managed to marry traditional and contemporary in the interior décor.

“It was about producing something modern but being respectful of the age of the building,” says Johnston. “We used old wallpaper styles and married them with contemporary fabrics and natural materials such as the smoked oak which is prevalent throughout.”

As a result, traditional flocked floral wallpaper neighbours mirrored mosaic walls; velvet brocade chairs are mixed with leather curved seats and a retro silver beaded curtain. Then there are the Venetian mirrors suspended over modern fireplaces and the under-lit glass gantry positioned in the original sash and case window. And, in the place where you might expect a chandelier, hangs the world’s biggest “cloud light” (a moulded glass fitting from Italian company Artemide) giving the Georgian bar an interesting twist.

Light has played a key part in the design process. Each fitting seems to have been chosen just as much for its sculptural form as it has for its function and, in this way, each area is distinguishable as much for its light fittings as it is for its colour scheme. Red acrylic lanterns suspended on plastic tension wires mark out the boothed seating area in the middle of the main bar, for example, and a Tigerlily embossed hardwood canopy accompanied by red acrylic light boxes marks out the communal dining area in the restaurant. For hotel guests, however, the stairwell makes the biggest style statement. Two giant glitter balls suspended from the cupola make the daylight dance all the way down the balustrade.

Natural light has a strong role to play everywhere. But while the Georgian bar at the front is flooded with light from the original windows, the office area at the back was a cavernous space. Two internal courtyards on both the east and west sides of the building have been reclaimed and, thanks to a glass slanted roof, cleverly lighten the mood. “We needed the space to work from 7am right through to 1am so we tried to make it nice and airy and let in as much light as possible,” says Johnston. “So, although we wanted to define different areas, we didn’t want to cut off parts of the room completely. That’s why we decided to use transparent walls such as the slatted screen and the steel mesh wall.”

There are also plenty of design features that diffuse light, such as shimmer screens, glitter balls, and even iridescent wallpaper.

But it’s the fabrics that really steal the show. Even in the 33 individually designed bedrooms, with their bespoke four-poster beds, Philippe Starck chairs and “big bang” pendant lights, it is the curtains and upholstered sofas that inject real life into each room.

Made by Designers Guild, the ornate, oversized floral designs would only look good in a building of this vintage. But, while the patterns may be inspired by the Rococo prints that marked out the Georgian era, the magentas, ambers and aquas are right on trend. And it’s this combination of old and new that perhaps best illustrates what the designers have achieved with Tigerlily.

Tigerlily, 125 George Street,
Edinburgh, tel: 0131-225 5005,
www.tigerlilyedinburgh.co.uk