OMEGA, the Official Timekeeper of the London 2012 Olympic Games is establishing an exclusive private residence for members and invited guests from the 27th of July through to closing ceremony on the 12th of August – OMEGA HOUSE.
OMEGA House will be located at The House of St Barnabas, a stunning Grade 1 listed Georgian town house in the historic heart of Soho. OMEGA House will provide a central home for OMEGA’s invited guests and will welcome a who’s who of Londoners and visitors to the Games, from film stars to the best of British sporting talent and well-known faces from fashion, film, business and society including OMEGA ambassadors Nicole Kidman and Jessica Ennis.
The House will offer its guests a luxurious retreat from the hustle and bustle of streets and venues in the Olympic host city. Designed to create an environment for business meetings, catching up with friends, or simply taking time to watch the Games on the big screen in the Olympic Garden and throughout the house, OMEGA House will be the place to be and be seen during the 2012 Olympic Games.
The Design of OMEGA House
When OMEGA’s designers and decorators first visited the House of St. Barnabas they were struck by the potential offered by the Grade I listed building and its garden.
Entrance Hall Artwork
Visitors to the house will be exposed to a magnificent, bespoke kinetic installation of a diving figure suspended in the double height reception space. It is being developed with Laban Movement analysis by artists Wootton & Dawe. The subtle, unique and elegant piece is a nod both to timekeeping and to the athletic rhythms and motion of the Olympic Games. It is not only a fascinating, mesmerising piece of art but an impressive feat of engineering.
At the end of the entrance hall corridor is an illuminated porcelain cup clock designed by Martha Freud especially for the OMEGA House. It was made using grids of delicate translucent porcelain cups. The cups are lit from within with halogen or LED bulbs and use their light to “speak” in words or phrases. Some of the cups are able to spin to display different words on different “faces”. The viewer sees the cups rotating, finding their next word. It gives the display a somewhat robotic feel while the intention of the illumination of the words makes it human. The clock displays the time using the words punched into the porcelain cups: “nearly 11 o’clock”; “supper time”; and “just after half past seven”. There is a gentle irony in the fact that while the clock is accurate, it doesn’t divide time into very fine units, unlike the OMEGA timekeepers at the Olympic Games whose results are announced in terms of hundredths of a second. As the artist points out, the clock provides the right amount of detail for a relaxed club environment.
The Ladymatic Lounge
OMEGA HOUSE LADYMATIC LOUNGE
In the lounge named for OMEGA’s stylish mechanical wristwatch for women, designers have been working with the house’s neutral English Heritage colour palette to devise a scheme that is soft, feminine and elegant. Surfaces are filled with flower clusters and twinkling candlelight. Afternoon tea and elegant cocktails are served from a marble resin bar unit next to which there is a unique display of timepieces. On the mantelpiece, the Ladymatic watches are displayed in glass domes together with beautifully crafted silk peonies and porcelain petals. An all white model of The House of St. Barnabas invites curious visitors to peek through the windows at the display inside which features Ladymatic watches and components as well as other curiosities and flowers. The model features miniature working chandeliers and everything inside it is white, inspired by Margiela. The showcased piece in this room is a kinetic flower wall sculpture called ‘Adaptive Bloom’, by artist Justin Goodyer. It interacts with guest movement and is both attention seeking and “intelligent”, so if no one has interacted with it after half an hour, the sculpture creates a pre-programmed random sequence of blooming flowers to attract attention to itself.
The Hour Vision Atelier
The Hour Vision Lounge draws attention to OMEGA’s fashionable Hour Vision Gents’ Collection and has been conceived as a masculine counterpart to the Ladymatic Lounge. Its rich dark colour palette is designed to work with the heritage colour of the space and the scheme recalls the London clubs which have been such a defining part of the city’s social scene. The room’s design is completed with polished lacquer, tailored leathers & engineered details. The handsome Hour Vision watches and the watch components that make up OMEGA’s state-of-the-industry Co-Axial movements are displayed inside two customized curiosity-cabinet-inspired coffee tables.
The Olympic Garden
OMEGA HOUSE TIMELESS GARDEN
The OMEGA House is one of only two buildings in Soho to have its own garden. The brand new timber decking maximises the space and has given the area a clean, contemporary appearance. The flower beds are being planted with green grasses and overblown foliage and the space is bordered with curved lounge benches. A large screen above the main bar will show the Olympic Games, softly lit with hundreds of candle lanterns.
Complementing the outdoor Olympic Garden, The OMEGA Timeless Garden Room has been designed in heritage colours and has been styled as a relaxing indoor garden lounge space. The tables are constructed as art display cabinets with architectural white detailing inside, organic displays and OMEGA’s Olympic Timeless watch collection. Guests will be able to relax on deep, comfortable sofas and be served drinks from a garden bar surrounded by small trees and plants.
The Speedmaster Bar
OMEGA HOUSE SPEEDMASTER BAR
No watch has a pedigree that can match that of the OMEGA Speedmaster: designed originally for motor sport enthusiasts and launched in 1957, the iconic chronograph came of age in the 1960s when it was approved by NASA for use on each one of the Space Agency’s manned missions. It earned its nickname, The Moonwatch, in July of 1969 when it was the first timepiece ever to be worn on the Moon. And the lounge that bears the Speedmaster name is appropriate designed with bold, innovative architectural features: its back bar unit and window cladding emulate the working mechanisms of a clock, directional co-ordinates and astronomy. The back bar and window arcs have also been inspired by the circularity of the Moon and planetary co-ordinates. They convey the subtle impression to guests that they are looking out onto the Moon. The comfortable sofas are upholstered in soft muted greys and printed “Moon effect” fabrics. The tables and bar are inspired by space rocks & craters and the DJ booth, with its irregular patterned fascia, is backlit in a way that casts sparkling light across the space. There is a compelling display that follows the fascinating timeline of the development of the entire Speedmaster range. It is presented in an incredible sparkling crystal cave above the historic stone fireplace. The floor, covered in a texured material called Bolon, is framed with volcanic-style rocks.
The artwork in the Speedmaster Lounge
A kinetic globe shaped piece by created by artist Balint Bolygo graphically portrays both the physical and conceptual forms of movement over time in a three-dimensional drawing. It is not only a thing of beauty but also a machine operated by two pendulums. This ‘machine’ is a sculptural object that acts out an artistic activity that recalls early scientific instrumentation and alludes subtly to a time when the division between art and science was ambiguous and blurred.
The Seamaster Lounge
Appropriately, the Seamaster Lounge is delicately ocean hued and incorporates both large and small screens for the optimal viewing of the Olympic Games. It is illuminated by a beautiful water droplet-inspired lighting installation by Baroncelli that fills the skylight with glistening dewdrops. The walls are decorated in shimmering pale grey/blue wallpaper that creates the ambiance of the sea. The seating is modular and pebble-like with textural felt and wool upholstery that recalls sea urchins. The Seamaster Lounge is a fully immersive yet contemporarily designed space that reveals an interesting range of clever tricks and quirky features. A dramatic digital infinite waterfall creates a sense of the ocean and the constancy of time and motion at one end of the room. It can also be transformed into other intelligent digital aquatic scenes or, in fact, to Olympic Games footage. A large and beautifully lit aquarium is displayed in a specially designed bookcase that also houses hand-blown phosphorescent glowing glass sculptures. Watches from OMEGA’s popular Seamaster collection are creatively displayed inside the aquarium.
The Constellation Club Room
Every Constellation in the universe has its brightest stars, and in OMEGA’s Constellation line, nothing glitters more brilliantly than the opulent watches in the Luxury Edition. The lounge named for the Luxury Edition collection reflects the essence of the watches. Sparkling walls offset by soft draping give this room a light, relaxing calm atmosphere by day; at night, the space is transformed with magical, glittering lighting effects. The bespoke floor incorporates the swirling Constellation pattern used in the OMEGA campaign, inlaid in glistening pale gold and copper Bolon flooring. The seating is fitted and prismatic and the room features tables with facetted mirrors reflecting light around the room. The prismatic watch displays, which are encased in ‘Aurum’ crystal bricks, invite visitors to look beyond bouncing rainbows to see the watches. The bar incorporates a prismatic crystal installation – ‘Aurum’, which not only gleams and shimmers by day but at night, with lighting and lasers, casts incredible constellations and rainbow prisms over the walls, floors and guests. The transformation of the light installation is breathtaking as it passes through transparent media consisting of luxury hand cut and polished crystal bricks. The gently changing chromatic light moves in a timeless, ever-changing flow.
A timeless addition to London 2012.
http://www.omegawatches.com/spirit/sports/london2012
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