Inspired by the Fabric of the City

03/2023 architecture & interior

When Carlos Rittner, president of a firm that stores and installs items for interior designers, commissioned LA-based Jessica Ayromloo to design his apartment in Mexico City, he gave her carte blanche. The two had met some time before when Ayromloo was working for interior designer Kelly Weartsler. Rittner’s brief for his project pretty much came down to “do what you would do for yourself.” He clearly trusted her and she clearly enjoyed the commission. 

As her primary inspiration, Ayromloo looked to Mexico City itself, a place rich in cultural and architectural heritage and alive with vibrant neighborhoods awash with every conceivable color, texture, and fabric. In setting about the transformation of the apartment, she introduced a strong color palette and a blend of rustic, vintage, and custom-made furnishings. 

(Designer Jessica Ayromloo found most of her inspiration for this apartment when walking around Mexico City. Almost all the surfaces are covered with patterned tiles, and the walls reflect the vibrant colors of the city. Photo: Courtesy of Annie Schlechter / The Interior Archive, Living to the Max)

Ice-cream pink and cactus green dominate the primary bedroom, where the bed has an elaborately carved antique door as a headboard. In the living room, a feature wall is picked out in an intense Aztec blue and internal doors are a soft red. At one end of this open-plan space, custom-made seating incorporates ornate ironwork by midcentury designer Arturo Pani. At the other end, a small stainless-steel kitchen is flanked by a terracotta stone wall that echoes the facades of buildings seen from the window. 

(Photo: Courtesy of Annie Schlechter / The Interior Archive, Living to the Max)

What stands out above all else, though, are the ever-changing surfaces on the floors and walls. Crossing boundaries not only between rooms but also between the floors and walls, ceramic tiles in a yellow-and-blue blockwork pattern wrap around the apartment to an almost dizzying effect. In the living room and bedroom, rivers of floor tiles are set within sheets of polished cork, the scale of the blockwork smaller than that of the walls and rendered in earthy tones. For Ayromloo, the effect of the whole is to make you feel like you are walking through the city streets, with its myriad textures and colors everywhere.

(Photo: Courtesy of Annie Schlechter / The Interior Archive, Living to the Max)

Find inspiration in a selection of extravagant interiors, brimming with color and pattern in our latest title Living to the Max. This story was originally featured in Living to the Max.