Mix and max: Designer Max Clendinning has had a radical change of heart when it comes to minimalism

Mix and max: Designer Max Clendinning has had a radical change of heart when it comes to minimalism There was a time, in the 1960s, when the architect, furniture and interior designer Max Clendinning (below) would have liked to have done away with "stuff" altogether. The second reason his disliking of objects seems implausible is that I'm interviewing him in his Victorian terrace house in Islington – and it is packed to the rafters, often rather beautifully, with anything from Memphis glass to mid-century Aalto furniture to William Morris prints to Picasso plates. Clendinning has lived here with his long-term partner, Ralph Adron, since 1972. This is so he can water plants on the terrace, wash his brushes and make a cup of coffee in a marvellously surreal coffee pot by Italian designer Gaetano Pesce. "It was just a dark space and I saw the prospect of reworking the room and the terrace outside. It's nice to be able to get the sky – there's wonderful views on the city," he says. The chunky, k geometric shapes with their corners curved off are both very much of his style and of their time: "They were inspired by, at that time, what we called computer lettering. There was chinaware from Germany called Thomas stacking china – there was a lot in the air, of that feeling [of neatly slotting things together], to me. " He still uses a full set of the chairs around his own dining-table today. "The way [the pieces are] related is virtually always with colour – all that's quite happy there, because of the colour, although it's in a Victorian house," he says of a little set-up in the front-room. "I admire what he does, and he admires what I do. But such a frenetic bricolage of styles and eras could easily just become a postmodern mess. Indeed, explains Clendinning, "Originally, I thought of the interiors I designed as an oasis from the world outside. In other rooms, yellow is definitely the dominant note – a long-time favourite shade of Clendinning's, daffodil-yellow is splashed around his study on the doors, in the tiled fireplace, on the other side of those blinging shutters. It's been a fixture in their lives since Adron made it for that white room in the 1960s. As with the rest of the home, there is a degree of artful maximalism here: the items have form and function, but they are also expressive, personal, and don't necessarily sit together in obvious ways. And it comes as no surprise that Max knows how to find just the right mix. It's hard to imagine Clendinning exploring space-age minimalism, given the current riot of colour in his home. This is surprising for two reasons. " Not with the aim to block the world out, you understand – although he does also have some adorable shutters, in gold gilt upstairs and silver downstairs, which would do the job elegantly – but rather to create another world within. "We never disagree," says Clendinning rather sweetly. And mostly, that method is colour. This attic area has a few of Clendinning's more recent designs (the chairs are about five years old) and while he doesn't do professional projects any more, there are many sculptures he makes for his own enjoyment dotted about the place. Mix and max: Designer Max Clendinning has had a radical change of heart when it comes to minimalism Trade News selected by Local Linkup on 09/04/2012