New look Groucho Club reconnects lost spaces

Michaelis Boyd Associates has led the two-year project to open up lost spaces and reconnect the building in a bid to give it a more intuitive flow and more unified look.

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Members club the Groucho has been redesigned by Michaelis Boyd Associates, which has made several major interventions within the building to create a unified look across three conjoined buildings.

The Soho, London-based Groucho Club appointed Michaelis Boyd in 2013 and tasked it with bringing together what had become a series of connected but disjointed spaces.

Michaelis Boyd’s team saw the project as a “challenging jigsaw puzzle” which it has looked to solve by creating “a more intuitive flow” it says.

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In the Mary Lou room on the first floor a new bar has been designed and a fireplace installed at the heart of the room while a plaster ceiling and herringbone floor have been introduced.

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An adjoining dining room features a restored plaster ceiling, new marble tables and curved banquette seating. Meanwhile the walls have been relined with linen to help with acoustics.

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Michaelis Boyd worked with creative director Alice Anthony and the Groucho Club’s art director Nicky Carter to make sure the design of the space could support the club’s “ever changing” art collection.

A member’s bar on the first floor has a new resin bar top with copper detailing. It is now back-dropped by lacquered walls and sits on a piece of “media heritage” – a reclaimed wooden floor, which has been created by salvaging the floor from the BBC’s Bush House.

The bar area is populated by custom-designed furniture, reupholstered antiques and pieces by Tom Dixon. Michaelis Boyd wanted the space to look as if it has evolved over time.

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The main staircase of the building has been restored and timber paneling on the adjacent walls has been stripped back.

Elsewhere a stain glass window has been removed, restored and then added into a former light well.

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On the second floor a carpeted screening room has been created and features custom made furniture and fabric-lined paneling.

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