Gallerist’s apartment under the PropertyLab+art project

Nadya Kotova is a Belgian gallery owner with Russian roots, lives in Antwerp, and exhibits Russian artists in her NK Gallery. In Moscow, she needed an apartment for temporary residence – pied-à-terre. She turned to Dmitry Kuznetsov and Natalya Vorobyeva. Their company PropertyLab+art combines a real estate agency, a design bureau, and a contemporary art gallery, so they both found a place and designed it. Their experience with art came in handy.

Read also: PropertyLab+art: apartment on Prechistenskaya embankment

The apartment is located in a former tenement house from the beginning of the 20th century. “We always treat old architecture with care, restore moldings, doors, floors. But there was nothing to save here. In Soviet times, the authentic layout was violated, and the house was cut into small apartments. Our priority was the comfort of the hostess. We got rid of the long corridor that ran through the entire apartment, and increased the bathroom due to it – we got a luxurious bathroom with a window.

This is not our first project with Nadya Kotova. The previous one was in bright colors – a real French apartment. This time she asked for “the most designer interior” and the first thing we suggested was “Let’s give color.” At first, she was cautious about the idea, because the walls were supposed to exhibit art. But after doing about a dozen colors in light shades, I agreed: they did not fit this space.

We went to the Manders salon nearby and chose the rich shades of green from Farrow & Ball. Juicy color is not a hindrance to exposure, it is not necessary to make the walls white. What we would recommend to avoid is ornamental wallpaper, active geometry on the walls, and bright carpets on the floor. We definitely do not recommend local lighting hanging over paintings in private homes, especially for contemporary art. The rest depends on the taste of the collector.