Monocle Minute – Cavendish Square Feature

Artfully Furnished

February 2020

Number 14 Cavendish Square is an 18th-century London mansion that’s only a modest stroll from the swirl of commuters and shoppers at Oxford Circus. But push open its doors and you enter another world. The property is currently awaiting a transformation into offices under the guidance of architects William Smalley and Walker Bushe. They have lots of work to do: there are holes in floors through which you can see the room below, some naked timber rafters and walls stripped back to old plaster. But the house’s elegance is clear.

The building is being marketed in a novel way. For the next year it will serve as a gallery/showroom for Modernity, a Stockholm and London-based dealer of 20th-century Nordic furniture, ceramics, and art. There in one corner is a 1958 Egg chair by Arne Jacobsen – yours for £14,000 (€16,500) – and here a 1936 Frits Henningsen sofa for £80,000 (€95,000) and a pair of armchairs by Alvar Aalto for £50,000 (€60,000). It’s all impeccable and all of collector quality. And it all helps to show off the potential that rests in the walls of the mansion; many of the wealthy purchasers of the furniture might wish to snap up the tenancy at the same time. It’s perhaps the most poised show house you’ll ever see.

To arrange a visit to see the furniture, email sebastien.holt@modernity.se; 14cavendishsquare.com