Home Office Collection by Mark Lewis as Associate to Johnny Grey Design, 1980-83
Home Office Collection Overview
First exhibited at Home Works, Robin Guild’s showroom in Pimlico, London, the Home Office Collection comprised a comprehensive range of furniture including desks, shelves, tables, lamps, occasional tables, trestle tables, sideboards and glass-fronted cabinets.
The glass-fronted cabinet was first designed by Johnny Grey, and the table by Mark Lewis. Each was first made and installed into the scheme for Lady Pamela Harlech’s kitchen in Notting Hill.
It was this that set the tone for the range.
Mark Lewis was then charged with the task of developing the range into its full complement of furniture and accessories.
The eras of Arts and crafts, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and periods preceding these were an influence. These periods of our design history used craft and decoration to enhance the design and construction of furniture and buildings.
Here we combined the contemporary idioms of High Tech, Post Modernism, and Neo-Classicism, each significant design movements of the eighties. However the most significant being was Modernism, which had the support of the majority of Architects and Designers who had rejected decoration and followed, with religious ardor, the principals of form following function.
This edict, now prevalent in 20th-century design, ensures that most everything is no more interesting than a well-proportioned cube. Consequently, these designs found little support from the establishment despite the abundant media coverage the range was given at the time.
