Cole & Son | Babylon

Martyn Lawrence Bullard works in a register that mixes the antique with the frankly theatrical, and Babylon is an unusually clear example. It takes the Hanging Gardens as a starting point and builds from two elements he returns to repeatedly: the arch, drawn as a fragment of ancient masonry, and flowers grown to a scale no garden would produce.

What holds it together is the way the two are combined. The arches supply an architectural grid, and the planting spills through and over it, so the design has both structure and abandon. Several of the motifs are adapted from the Cole & Son archive rather than invented, which gives the ornament a period accuracy that a purely modern drawing would lack, and the joins between old and new are deliberately not disguised.

It hangs on a half drop with a 76.2 cm repeat, which staggers the arcade across widths so no column of arches forms down the wall, important in a design with this much verticality in it. On a 0.52 m roll it suits ordinary rooms. Use it where some drama is wanted and can be sustained: a dining room, a dressing room, a bedroom with heavy curtains and lamplight.