Incredible Thames Flat by Damian Diben

Oscar Wilde’s principle that life imitates art is as valid today as it was in the 19th century.

An Irish wit, poet, and playwright, art was believed to influence our view of the world around us, influencing our beliefs, passions, and experiences.

In the case of novelist and artisan Damián Diben, this is true. His love for art permeates his novels, craft projects and above all, sophisticated London, conveying the essence of his work.

Author of the epic Keepers of History trilogy about a family of time travelers, Damien has seen his books translated into 27 languages ​​and published in more than 40 countries. But it is his latest novel, The Color Storm (Michael Joseph, £14.99), which is indelibly linked to his apartment at Bankside Lofts in the SE1 block.

Here, at his handcrafted desk in a light-filled, open space, Damiani unfolds a lavish story that has elements of both love and suspense. He changes the jobs and destinations of him.

In the book, Damian writes: “Color is the subject of all artists’ sighs, the reason we wake up in the morning and dream at night.”

Bright colors fill the triangular two-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a 120-unit building designed by Piers Goff. Cabinets full of classic prints and oil paintings, curiosities, lighting and furniture.

Even the exterior fabrics of this award-winning building, built in the mid-to-late 1990s on the banks of the Thames, facing St. Paul’s Cathedral and with an old Victorian cocoa warehouse in its centre, have a bold effect. use color for 1950 Office buildings incorporated into the scheme were extended and joined to form a terraced tower with characteristic yellow gold window frames.

“I bought this apartment about 25 years ago when I was still in my twenties,” says Damien, who shares the house. Plum Guide to the site and two rescue dogs, Daphne and Velvet.

“I was looking at an old council flat that was badly run down, I looked out the window and saw the Bankside Loft on Hopton Street. I put down a deposit on the only show flat that was still for sale.

It was a move that confirmed that Damien was a spirit of the times.

“My friends thought I was crazy because the Thames didn’t have time to go back yet,” says Damian. “Since then, I’ve seen Tate Modern as a global destination, one of the first ‘wobblers’ on the Millennium Bridge and Borough Market as one of Europe’s best artisan food destinations. I’ve seen it reinvented as one of the

Having grown up in South Kensington and Pimlico, Damian spent hours at the V&A and the Natural History Museum when he bought the apartment, igniting his passion for everything from design and dinosaurs to travel, cosmology and archaeology. difference. 1,110 square feet of interior space.

“Each Bankside Lofts home is completely unique, and we loved the lightness and height of this one, but we changed the design a bit,” he says.

The addition of a geometrically shaped wooden staircase leading to the terrace area above one of the bedrooms effectively creates a living space of its own, and in one of the two bathrooms, it has a glass brick wall feature. Including images from space taken by NASA quickly becomes a design cliché.

The hallway in the middle of the apartment was converted into a dressing room in the master bedroom and the ceiling in the bedroom was lowered.

“I basically worked a lot,” says Damian. Damian began his career as an actor and performing artist, as well as painting backdrops, murals, and props for film and television. He invited a friend to build a kitchen out of plywood and installed hardwood floors throughout the apartment.

But what really makes this apartment interior sing is the seemingly effortless treatment of paintings, prints, sculptures and objects against pale greens and bright white walls.

The 26’7″ 18’18” open-plan main living space features a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass windows and built-in shelving with thousands of books and oversized bright blue Barbier lamps that catch the eye of immediate. Thousands of pounds at the Paul Smith store, W1, Albemarle Street.

Flanked by a blue velvet chaise longue by Made, it features two Gourny hand-painted wallpapers featuring tropical landscapes in vibrant colours, mounted and framed on canvas. Damian’s friend, illustrator Josie Jammett, added a parrot to the scene.

“I find beauty in almost everything,” says Damian.

Old master paintings, carved marble busts of Roman emperors, lovingly restored tapestries of Venus and Adonis, 1950s American painting sets, everything in the house is equally important. It has been.

For Damien, vintage cabinets of nuts and bolts are as much fun as jumping into a canyon like the brightly colored corals he bought in California or the green glass Buddha statue he inherited from his grandmother. Survival in the Indiana Jones movies”.

More recently, a reclaimed Gothic altar railing was rebuilt to create a room divider. A Renaissance man, Damien has always loved design, construction and decoration.

“I’ve found it to be very therapeutic, especially after using the computer for a few days,” he says. , sometimes I do well. I myself built many things in my apartment: tables, light boxes, shelves with hidden doors.

Writing The Color Storm, with its themes of drama and decadence, pushed him to dig deeper into his roots as an artist.

While she is currently planning her next novel, she is also busy designing a furniture collection that she plans to sell at a temporary event later this year. We use the farm shop owned by our founder, close friend and famous florist Nicky Tibbles.

In fact, the pull of a full-time life in the country was so strong that Damian and Ali decided to move there and put their Bankside Loft home on the market for £1.2m.

Therefore, the next chapter of this unique apartment requires a new character.

To learn more about Damian’s work, visit his website.

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