The first question inspired by the arrival of a big-screen television in many homes remains not how to tune in the picture but how to make the whole set invisible when it`s not in use.
The task is far from easy, given a gadget with a movie-sized screen the color of murky water.
But in the Chicago area home of Stanley and Amy Lerner, high style has caught up with high tech. Architectural sleight-of-hand and simple roll-away concepts for furnishing combine to provide the private spaces and public faces of home entertainment in a sweeping 44-foot living room.
”I combined the living room and den into a space that would function as a party area but also as a cuddly place for sitting in front of the fireplace when the Lerners were alone,” says Chicago interior designer Vassa, of Vassa International Ltd.
Yet, despite the pastiche of stereo and video gear, the room is serene, a beachfront of warm earth tones with pastels accenting the hand-painted upholstery of the swivel chairs set around the fireplace.
As for the 72-inch television screen, Vassa wrapped it in a mirrored cabinet that camouflages it completely from three sides. It stands propped in front of the living room sofa and, from this position, the cabinet serves as a room divider, separating the seating area around the couch from the one banking the fireplace.
The unit also swivels on its base to open up the entire room for parties. Guests walk by a textural mirrored surface with no hint of the television screen behind it.
Vassa assigned design and structural functions to other electronic gear wherever possible. The television projector box, laminated in brass, serves as part of the pillaring for a multileveled coffee table with travertine surfaces cut to abstract, embryonic shapes.
A platform winds in sculptural curves across the 44-foot span of the room. The platform visually pulls together all the entertainment space, and the step down from it helps create the cozy area around the fireplace.
”You have the stage for the parties,” and then you step into the more private realm, Vassa says.
Amy Lerner says the platform solved the problem of taking down a wall and being left with a huge arena that made it all too obvious two rooms had been combined.
”We love the platform. It just makes the space really interesting,”
Lerner says. She adds that the new floor plan is perfect for entertaining because ”it opens into the dining room, the kitchen and the front foyer.” It also opens to a back yard complete with swimming pool for outdoor parties.
Designing, constructing and decorating a home entertainment setting that suits the black tie cocktail party as well as those evenings devoted to the late night reruns can cost anywhere from $15,000 to $50,000, Vassa estimates. Multipurpose has become a watchword for entertainment rooms in the 1980s, designers say. Computer games in the family room may have displaced the Ping- Pong table in the basement rec room, but nothing has replaced the need for space that works to entertain guests as well as the family.
Design Institute America, based in Ohio, has been a pioneer in developing furnishings for media environments. The firm, with a showroom at the Merchandise Mart, coined the phrase ”electronic furnishings” for such places several years ago. While the phrase raises images of rooms straight out of a science fiction movie set, the reality at DIA is a line of contemporary cabinetry that can pull together an entertainment center to suit almost any space.
People want ”a home theater” with an esthetic look for an existing family room or for an apartment, says Robert Winzeler, product development coordinator for DIA.
The job of designing to these needs actually is becoming simpler with technological advances such as big-screen televisions that no longer require the separate projector box.
Creating a media environment of any kind, however, still leaves the consumer with the decision of whether to hide thousands of dollars of electronic gear behind thousands of dollars of cabinetry or whether to deal with video esthetics head-on.
DIA tackles the issue both ways, offering an elaborate wall system with louvered doors that open by remote control for those who prefer to camouflage the big screen.
Another system cleverly houses the stereo speakers in decorative columns but leaves the other components of the media system in view behind glass doors to keep out the dust. This cabinetry, costing $18,000 and offered in 22 colors of lacquered wood or 27 metal finishes, is designed for state-of-the-art televisions and surround sound stereo speaker systems.
New York product designer Kaizo Oto says he created the unit for DIA with the idea in mind that it`s time to stop apologizing for the big screen on a television.
”The screen itself can be so attractive that it doesn`t have to be camouflaged,” Oto says. That murky colored screen can serve as a frame for any graphic design a computer can generate, he points out.
For the future, Oto sees the single media room evolving into something of a media home that encompasses the bedrooms, the kitchen and even the garage as well as the living room and den.
”In the kitchen you could call up the morning newspaper or a demonstration of how to make a recipe” on a wall-size video screen that could move from room to room on tracks, Oto suggests.
The idea reflects his philosophy of melding all the computer and video capacity of the home into ”a window on the world” rather than concentrating it in an entertainment room.
For the present, ”the thought is to make an important statement about sight and sound” in decor, Oto says, offering his column-shaped speaker system as an example.
New design options as well as the trend toward standardized sizes for stereo and video component parts are playing a role in the media environment that is breaking ranks from the strictly media room.
But all the wires and circuitry still need to be hidden within the basic architecture of a room. Oto used arched, overhead tubes to hide the wiring for the surround sound system encased in the cabinetry he designed for DIA. This is one solution for camouflage in an existing room. But where a complete overhaul is planned, options increase for wiring gear from the ceiling or, as was done in the case of the Lerners` mirrored television, from under the floor.
Vassa says the emphasis on home entertainment that includes the full array of electronic equipment has infected all age groups. She says she recently designed a combined home office and entertainment space for an older couple who have always honored a meticulous but traditional style of decor.
”They change completely” when they enter the sleek environs of their entertainment room with its Italian leather furnishings and the latest in sight and sound equipment, she says. ”It`s like they`re living out a fantasy.”
