Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used To Be. If I were forced to choose, I’d have... (Beiteddine Palace)
Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used To Be. If I were forced to choose, I’d have to say that this room (technically a large hallway) towards the far end of the private quarters at Beiteddine, was my favourite that day. Although it lacked the colour of many of the other rooms and was much lighter on architectural flourishes, its simplicity was refreshing. Of course, it had also been artfully arranged; the row of beaten copper tables and utensils running down the middle, the decorative and yet unobtrusive pendant lights, the two paintings casually posed in front of carved wall niches, this was Minimalism as it might have been conceived in the 18th Century. I am not full magpie for you see, I am only part-Indian. My second, English half thrills to the less decorative, to the cool and the austere. Cistercian abbeys. Mies van der Rohe. Neolithic stone circles. North African medina and, stripped of its dismayingly gaudy surroundings, the crisp black elegance of the Ka’aba. While much of this region may be better known today for its enduring love-affair with pseudo French furniture and gilt, a style I once heard referred to as Louis Farroukh, it has also enjoyed a lengthy, if sporadic relationship with the minimal. I have seen vaulting 11th Century mud brick corridors in Iraq, dusty, unloved 13th Century pottery in Damascus and stylish 15th Century BC mortuary temples in Lower Egypt which all looked as though they could have been built or made the day before yesterday, rather than hundreds or even thousands of years ago. And so even as I watch the seemingly endless march of smoked glass-clad, faux Umayyad, post-modern monstrosities across the Middle Eastern landscape, those reminders give me hope that one day, the simpler, more sophisticated tastes that prevailed in the past may once again become fashionable.
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