Mister Important Design Dreams Up a Deco Design for the Gibson
Art Deco isn’t the first thing one might think of when contemplating the current San Francisco design scene, but the Tenderloin’s Hotel Bijou just might change that.
For its in-house restaurant, Gibson, Mister Important Design created brass screens adorned with peacocks and bright banquettes in custom leather. Floors and walls are warm walnut or Dal Tex’s hex ceramics. Painted tin ceilings support custom pendants and brass chandeliers and surround, in the private dining area, the Gibson’s true star: a ceiling mural by the Italian artist Marco Battaglini.
“Marco painted the scene in the style of 18th-century Rococo painters such as François Boucher,” says Mister Important Design’s principal and chief creative Charles Doell, who licensed the image for a wallpaper application and designed it to “stretch over the large ceiling recess that was created for it.” Then, for a touch of pizzazz, Doell surrounded the mural with clear bulbs, he says, “reminiscent of a marquee, from an era when Bijou was one of the most popular names for a movie house.” It’s a modern iteration of the old-style modern.
