Six unique MO design destinations

Red admirals, cabbage whites, common blues, meadow browns; there is a spectrum of English butterflies, and Leah Wood hand-painted more than 100 lifelike examples on the walls at Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, London. The hypnotically colourful result is Butterfly Terrace: a balcony space adjacent the hotel’s ballroom (in which the Queen and Princess Margaret learned to dance). An environmental activist as well as an artist, Wood – the daughter of Rolling Stone, Ronnie – says she creates art that she hopes will “raise awareness about the environment in the face of climate change”. It’s a design choice that also complements Joyce Wang's Hyde Park-inspired interior redesign of the hotel, and made the narrow, elegant terrace a point of creative interest.

What is it about Frank Gehry and fish? They have been a recurring motif for the top-flight architect – celebrated for his extraordinary modernist buildings including the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao – who began his creative life as a furniture designer and created his first ‘Fish Lamps’ in the early 1980s. They’ve been seen in the world’s most respected galleries, such as Gagosian, and you’ll also find an example in the lobby at Mandarin Oriental Wangfujing, Beijing. “The lamp here is a crown of three koi chasing one another, and is unusual in that it’s a tricoloured example of Gehry’s more-often monochrome Fish Lamps,” says art and design writer, Skye Sherwin. “He began making them in 1983, as a commission for Formica to create objects from its new plastic laminate. After shattering a piece by accident, he was apparently reminded of fish scales, and got to work.”

The courtyard garden at Mandarin Oriental, Paris is a secluded destination within a destination, populated by pink-blooming camelia trees and Chanel-clad locals (the store is just a moment away) who are as chic as you’d hope; its lush greenery punctuated by a distinctive black stone fountain. You can also dine here, weather, pandemic and opening hours permitting, if you’re a guest of Camélia – one of the hotel restaurants overseen by Michelin star-accruing chef Thierry Marx. But whether you’re eating out or just breathing it all in, there’s a peaceful, even otherworldly feel to this garden hideaway – its lush greenery punctuated by a distinctive black stone fountain – that belies the fact you’re on the shopping artery of Rue Saint-Honoré and just a stroll from Place Vendôme. Like this? You’d love The Parisian Apartment.