House Warming
London's design landscape has just been upgraded with the immersive and perfectly pitched Gubi House, a Georgian townhouse that’s just become the Danish brand’s first UK showroom
There’s something about Danish brand Gubi’s products that capture the zeitgeist, while at the same time feeling like objects that could live in a space for decades and never get old. From 2013’s Beetle chair – once you know it, you’ll see it everywhere – to the re-release of Gabriella Crespi’s curvy rattan outdoor furniture from the 1970s, Gubi’s pieces are the kind you can fall hard for. Now, the brand’s devotees have a new temple at which to worship, with the opening of its first standalone UK showroom, in London’s Clerkenwell.
Why London? “So many reasons,” says Gubi’s chief brand officer, Marie Kristine Schmidt. “It’s a true European hub for architects and designers, and it’s a market that’s a true metropolis where a lot of things are happening – restaurants and hotels, the whole hospitality scene.”
As brand immersion goes, this is a deep dive. Gubi House takes over an entire Georgian townhouse on Charterhouse Square, its red-brick facade, sash windows, classical fireplaces and sweeping staircase the perfect expression of period gentility. (The brand had been thinking about a London outpost since pre-Covid, before this came up.)
Such buildings can be a wonderful match for contemporary design, and the stripped-back interiors and muted colours create an elegant backdrop for Gubi’s portfolio. Danish surface design specialists File Under Pop have created some subtle wall treatments, from clay to lava stone, paint and hand-painted wallpaper.
The brand’s breadth of products, from furniture and lighting to rugs and accessories, means that it’s possible to coherently furnish the whole place from top to bottom, but every floor has been given its own character, however. “This is a townhouse, and we wanted to respect that,” says Schmidt. “There are big rooms, but also some more intimate spaces. We always work in quite an eclectic way in how we put things together, and classic British style is also about layering, mixing old and new, and playing around with different surfaces and textures. We wanted to reflect that, too.”
The ground floor – comprising a lounge, dining/reading room and a meeting room – is described as “boutique chic” to emulate a boutique hotel, with reissued 20th-century lighting, those classic Beetle chairs by GamFratesi, and Space Copenhagen’s Private furniture.
Every single room is a joy to be in, and there’s something that pleases the eye everywhere you go. There’s a very good sense of harmony here
Step up a floor and the mood shifts to a more 1970s-influenced space, with a pumpkin-coloured Wonder sofa contrasting with a boldly striped iteration of a Pasha lounge chair, first deigned by Pierre Paulin in 1975. A cascading spiral of Semi pendants – a light from 1968 that went on to become a classic of Danish design – demonstrates Gubi’s commitment to keep telling the story of its native country’s creative contribution. An integrated island bar, meanwhile, lets you know that this is a social space for entertaining.
The second floor is intended to capture the mood of a clubby co-working space, with GamFratesi’s art deco IOI coffee tables; Violin and Masculo dining chairs; Space Copenhagen’s Moon dining table; and Wikkelsø’s angular V11 lounge chair. Finally, the third floor has bohemian sprit: Gabriella Crespi’s aforementioned rattan lounge furniture, a cluster of Turbo pendants (Louis Weisdorf’s retro-futuristic shades originally designed in the 1960s) and Joe Columbo’s cutely curving Basket sofa, here in a seductive burnt orange velvet, all make it worth the climb.
“Every single room is a joy to be in, and there’s something that pleases the eye everywhere you go,” says Schmidt. “There’s a very good sense of harmony here.”
Open by appointment, Gubi House is complemented by a new UK-focused digital space, too, allowing customers to order directly for the first time.
