Homing

Today I’m talking to the wonderful Sumayya Vally, founder of the architecture and research practice Counterspace. When in 2020 Sumayya designed the Serpentine pavilion, she joined the ranks of luminaries including Zaha Hadid, Peter Zumthor and Frank Gehry. In 2021, Time Magazine named her one of the ‘100 Leaders of the Future’ and, more recently, she was artistic director of the inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale in Saudi Arabia.

What really shines through in this conversation is Sumayya’s interest in the notion of home as it relates to place. She was born in an Indian township in Pretoria, just after Nelson Mandela was released from prison, and she cites the city of Johannesburg as her biggest inspiration. When she arrived in London, she became interested in the gathering spaces where settlers from other countries and communities have established themselves: churches, synagogues, marketplaces, female community centres, black-music venues and so on. ‘Home is not a physical place,’ she says. ‘It’s a sensibility and a feeling.’

The name ‘Sumayya’ means ‘to rise to the occasion’, and she tells me how she’s an outlier in her family and how her parents made sacrifices to provide her with an education. Very occasionally in life, you meet someone who has an inner light that seems to shine more brightly than other people’s. For me, Sumayya has that. She’s incredibly composed, articulate and wise beyond her years and I’m full of admiration for the work she’s doing to bring disparate cultures together.

This episode was recorded in person in London.

For more:

Visit The Modern House website to see images of the spaces discussed in this episode.

Check out Counterspace.

Follow Matt Gibberd on Instagram

Follow The Modern House Instagram

Watch our Homing In films on YouTube

Producer: Hannah Phillips

Editing: Oscar Crawford

Graphic Design: Tom Young

Music: Father

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At the time of recording, Tim was knee-deep in building works at home, so I polished up my Chelsea boots for a visit to his London studio. 

As always, I asked him to describe his life story through the lens of the homes he’s lived in over the years. It was particularly interesting to find out more about his current home, which he bought after seeing it on our website and falling instantly in love. It’s a mid-century masterpiece set in splendid isolation near Rye, in East Sussex. A celebration of craftsmanship comes through in everything that Tim is about. 

His father was a textile manufacturer, and he’s inherited a fascination with how things are made and the excitement of seeing something take shape on the factory floor. He tells me about his background in advertising, when he was given the most thrilling brief of all time: ‘Make Adidas cool again’. Having been given the keys to one of the world’s most established brands, he was inspired to start his eponymous footwear company and ultimately take over Grenson.

Tim is a lovely guy – very humble and grounded – and I really enjoyed getting to know him through the course of this conversation.

This episode was recorded in person at the Grenson Studio in Chelsea.

For more:

Visit The Modern House website to see images of the spaces discussed in this episode.

Check out Grenson.

Follow Matt Gibberd on Instagram

Follow The Modern House Instagram

Watch our Homing In films on YouTube

Production: Hannah Phillips

Editing: Oscar Crawford

Graphic Design: Tom Young

Music: Father

This episode was sponsored by Vitsoe.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I first became aware of Jeremy’s food when he was head chef of Terence Conran’s Blueprint Café, which was above the old Design Museum in Shad Thames. Nowadays, of course, he’s in charge of the kitchen at the revered Quo Vadis in Soho.

No one seems to have a bad word to say about Jeremy, and Jay Rayner describes him as ‘one of those rare phenomena in the London food world: a chap everyone agrees is a good thing.

His cookbook is simply called Cooking, which sums up his warm-hearted and simple approach to food. I was fascinated to find out more about Jeremy’s life via the homes he’s lived in, from the modern house his parents built, which was shaped like a wedge of cheese, to the flat in a converted factory where we recorded this episode.

It turns out that his approach to interiors is as artful as his presentation of food – as if each element has been dolloped off a spoon and landed in exactly the right place.

This episode was recorded at Jeremy Lee’s east London home.

For more: 

Visit The Modern House website to see images of the spaces discussed in this episode

Watch Homing In, the film series. 

Check out Jeremy’s cookbook, Cooking

Follow Matt Gibberd on Instagram

Follow The Modern House Instagram

Producer: Hannah Phillips

Editing: Oscar Crawford

Graphic Design: Tom Young

Music: Father

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Akram’s rich career includes performing at the opening ceremony of the London Olympics, collaborating with artists Anish Kapoor and Antony Gormley, and choreographing tours and videos for the likes of Kylie Minogue and Florence + the Machine. He was awarded an MBE for services to dance in 2005. 

He kindly invited us to his home last summer and we recorded this conversation in a shady spot in the garden. Akram is of Bangladeshi descent and he grew up above his parents’ restaurant in south-west London. He was bullied at school and harassed by the National Front outside of it, so he’s always had a conflicted view of his community. As a child, he was introverted to the point of being mute, and movement quickly became his primary form of expression. He tells me how he danced so enthusiastically at home that the lights in the restaurant below would start shaking, putting the customers off their food. The word ‘home’ has come to mean many things for Akram: it’s the small studio in the garden where he practises dance for four hours every morning, it’s the stage on which he performs, and it’s also his own body. 

As is the case for so many true artists, there’s a lot of conflicting emotion inside him. He talks particularly poignantly about his relationship with his late father, who always struggled to demonstrate his love. Akram’s story has really stayed with me. Being able to talk to people on this podcast is a great privilege, and conversations like this one really remind me of that.

For more: 

Visit The Modern House website to see images of the spaces discussed in this episode

Check out the latest from the Akram Khan Company

Follow Matt Gibberd on Instagram

Follow The Modern House Instagram

Watch our Homing In films on YouTube

Producer: Hannah Phillips

Editing and mixing: Oscar Crawford

Graphic Design: Tom Young

Music: Father

This episode was sponsored by Vitsoe

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I first met Roksanda in 2006. We were selling her flat in King’s Cross, which was unlike anything I’d seen before: a brooding space with cast-concrete worktops, a black resin floor and mirrored lightwells. It had a subterranean lap-pool that was completely black, like a cave, where one could imagine Bruce Wayne practising his backstroke. Roksanda had recently shown her first collection at London Fashion Week and garments dangled enticingly from rails in her workspace. Some 18 years later, I’ve come to meet her in her studio in the East End to record this podcast. As before, her latest collection is on display, only this time the hanging rails have multiplied by a factor of a hundred. The colours are even more vibrant. Roksanda is no longer simply a name; it’s a brand with a global following.

I loved finding out more about Roksanda’s life story. She talks passionately about the importance of nature in her life, from the old quince trees in her grandparents’ garden to the inside-out living of her favourite Modernist houses in Brazil. She describes how the birth of her daughter was like a portal opening up, which gave her new confidence and a sense of perspective. She tells me about how she’s managed to bring architecture into fashion, and why she believes that clothes are there to provide shelter and protection in the same way that a home does.

Thank you so much for listening, as always, and I really hope you enjoy it!

This episode was recorded in person at Roksanda’s East London studio. 

For more: 

Visit our website to see images of the spaces discussed 

Check out Roksanda’s latest collection 

Check out The Lost House sales listing, over on The Modern House 

Follow Matt Gibberd on Instagram

Follow The Modern House Instagram

Watch our Homing In films on YouTube

Producer: Hannah Phillips

Editing and mixing: Oscar Crawford

Graphic Design: Tom Young

Music: Father

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rosh is founder of the brilliant jewellery company Alighieri. We discuss her life story through the prism of the homes she’s lived in, from humble beginnings in Zambia to the beautifully designed flat she now owns in Clerkenwell. When Rosh moved to London at the age of eight, she was the only person of colour in her school. She tells me how she’s managed to channel this feeling of alienation towards a personal mission of bringing people together, celebrating commonality rather than difference. We talk about the importance of ritual at home and why she likes living on her own. We also discuss her suspicion of the colour green, the joy of negative space and why she imagines herself living in the desert as an old lady. Hope you enjoy it!

This episode was recorded in person at Rosh's London studio.

For more: 

Visit Alighieri

See images of Rosh's own home and Frey House over on The Modern House

Subscribe to The Modern House newsletter for weekly interiors inspiration

Find out more about Matt Gibberd’s latest book, A Modern Way To Live

Follow Matt Gibberd on Instagram

Follow The Modern House Instagram

Watch our Homing In films on YouTube

Production: Hannah Phillips

Editing and mixing: Oscar Crawford

Graphic Design: Tom Young

Music: Father

This episode is sponsored by Vitsoe.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I’ve known Duncan for many years now and he’s definitely one of the good guys. We first met when I was commissioned to write a piece for The World of Interiors about the amazing home in west London he shares with his wife, Lyndsay Milne McLeod, and their son, Oban. Duncan’s kindly invited me back to the house to record this episode. He tells me about how growing up on building sites brought him close to his father, the importance of magic in architecture and why he believes you should always design a house as if you’re playing hide-and-seek in it. Duncan certainly isn’t the first guest to shed a tear or two on this podcast and I think this is a really lovely, heartfelt conversation.

This episode was recorded at Duncan's home in West London.

For more:

Check out Studio McLeod's latest work

Visit our website for images of places discussed, and to read our interview with Duncan McLeod

Sign up to The Modern House newsletter for weekly interiors inspiration

Production: Hannah Phillips

Editing and mixing: Oscar Crawford

Graphic Design: Tom Young

Music: Father

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jacqueline is a jewellery designer whose work I’ve admired for many years, probably because it’s so architectural. As you probably know by now, we try to record these podcasts in the guest’s home whenever possible, and this one is particularly exciting on that front, because Jacqueline lives in a 1960s house perched on a hillside in Los Angeles. As is the custom on this podcast, I asked Jacqueline to talk about a home from her past, her current place, and a home of the future. She told me what it was like to grow up in a big family, and how the soul music that boomed around the house was somehow a form of defiance against the racial tension that African-Americans were feeling at that time. And we also talked about how the pandemic inspired her homing instinct, why she’s enjoying living with less and her love of mid-century modern houses.

This episode was recorded in person at Jacqueline's Los Angeles home studio.

For more:

Head to the Carpenters Workshop Gallery‘s London space, to visit ‘Jacqueline Rabun: A Retrospective’

Check out Jacqueline Rabun’s latest work

Find out more about her dream home, the Loring House

Visit our website for images and details of the places discussed

Sign up to The Modern House newsletter for weekly interiors inspiration

Follow Matt Gibberd on Instagram

Follow The Modern House Instagram

Watch our Homing In films on YouTube

Production: Hannah Phillips

Editing and mixing: Oscar Crawford

Graphic Design: Tom Young

Music: Father

This episode is sponsored by Vitsoe.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Glenn's a brilliant curator and writer with a particular interest in craft. If that conjures up an image of lace doilies and crocheted waistcoats, then don't panic!

Back in 2011, he put together the amazing 'Postmodernism' exhibition at the V&A in London, which was a riot of Memphis pattern and colour; and more recently, he's co-curated a show called 'Mirror Mirror' at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. Glenn writes beautifully – and his book Fewer, Better Things was a really big influence on my own book, A Modern Way to Live. A phrase he uses a lot is 'material intelligence', which is the idea that we should try to understand the things we choose to live with – where they've come from and how they've been made. I don’t know if it's material intelligence or old-fashioned fate that led Glenn to find his home in Upstate New York, but it really is the physical manifestation of everything he believes in. We also chatted about his place in east London, what it's like to be an identical twin, his thoughts on the metaverse and all sorts of other things. Glenn is one of the most erudite people I know and his thoughtfulness is something we could all learn from.

This episode was recorded in person at Glenn's east London home.

For more: 

Head over to The Modern House website for images of the places discussed 

Watch the B-52's 'Love Shack' music video 

Check out the house built by a librarian's collection of bricks

Read more by Glenn Adamson

Sign up to The Modern House newsletter for weekly interiors inspiration 

Follow Matt Gibberd on Instagram

Follow The Modern House Instagram

Watch our Homing In films on YouTube

Executive Producer: Kate Taylor of Feast Collective

Production: Hannah Phillips 

Music: Father

Graphic Design: Tom Young 

This episode is sponsored by Vitsoe.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hans Ulrich Obrist is the artistic director of the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington, west London, and is universally acknowledged as one of the most important and prolific art curators of our time. When I spoke to him at his office, I discovered a force of nature with an energy unlike that of anyone I’ve met before. His notion of home is also pretty extreme. When he was a student, he turned his flat into a gallery and he’s lived in some of the world’s most famous house-museums. This episode doesn’t follow the usual format, but I think it’s a really interesting portrait of a brilliant man. 

This conversation was recorded in person in Hans Ulrich Obrist’s office at the Serpentine gallery. 

For more: 

Head over to our website for more images of the places discussed

Visit The Serpentine Gallery 

Sign up to The Modern House newsletter for weekly interiors inspiration 

Check out Matt Gibberd’s latest book, A Modern Way To Live 

Follow Matt Gibberd on Instagram

Follow The Modern House Instagram

Watch our Homing In films on YouTube

Executive Producer: Kate Taylor of Feast Collective

Production: Hannah Phillips

Music: Father

Graphic Design: Tom Young

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.