Rough and refined
Michael Bechara is a Sydney interior designer who loves working with his hands. Intimate rooms that blend the rough and the refined are his trademark. Becharaâs studio in Surry Hills is ordered and precise. His parlour holds a perfect balance of objects. It is pared back and minimal, yet a look around the room defies logic. There is so much to look at.
A worn leather chair with rust red pillow sits in the corner like an old friend. A large John Plapp abstract painting hangs above a grey felt sofa. An old industrial set of metal drawers crawl up a wall next to the door, and by the mantle piece, a smokey grey 70âs bubble mirror, fills up an empty corner. Thereâs nothing standard or formulaic about the room. Itâs spacious and yet still very warm and inviting. A look over Becharaâs residential folio proves this point again. No two rooms he’s designed look, or feel, the same.
In each of the homes he’s created, you can find considerable grit and glamour. A perfect poise of polish and patina. âThere is always a feel that I am trying to achieve, and usually that is quite simplified, quite clean,â Bechara says thoughtfully. âI believe in contrast. I think contrast is what makes a room really work,â he says.
Translating and transcribing the style of home owners, is his real lifeâs work. âWhen someone walks into a room Iâve designed, they should not see me. They should not see Michael Bechara. For me, itâs much more about making the space personal. More about tailoring things to meet the client,â he says. Bechara, who studied in Sydney, considered a career in art or sculpture before settling on interior design.
âI am influenced by everything around me. Film, music, mostly my environment and especially colour. I look at fashion and get inspired by the way fashion designers use tailoring and mix fabrics together. I am really into textures,â he says.
Still a bit underground, Becharaâs work is hard to identify in the marketplace. All of his projects come from word of mouth referrals and the few traits his projects do share, are his love of âawkward colourâ and his hyper-competency at mixing old and new. Now, with a pure focus on residential design, Michael Bechara enjoys renovating and re-designing homes, as well as sketching designs for bespoke rugs, lighting fixtures, lamps and furniture.
âI design a lot of what goes into the homes. I draw it and I have it made here in Australia. I love craftmanship too. I love to actually see the work in a well made object,â he says.
Recently he was invited to design the foyer for the Cliveden residential apartments on Bridge Street. His other projects include a private residence full of clashing animal print in Surry Hills; a large art-focused home in Glebe, a private home in Darling Point and a large home in Mosman, where he is doing âjust a few rooms a yearâ for his client.
With his humble, yet self-assured manner, Michael Bechara comes across as someone utterly devoted to work. He insists on calling himself a âgo betweenâ; describing his craft as that of helping people to effectively translate and transfer their personalities onto their homes. âI like to really look at what the client likes and then I take their ideas and try to work with them. I also like to try and use their ideas, and then push them. I think working with my clients gives them confidence. It gives them the sense that they do have great ideas and that they just need help with the implementing.â