Curves are finding their way into modern interiors
From kitchen doorways and living rooms to restaurants and salons, curves are bringing a familiar warmth to modern interiors.
Sometimes, the first thing you notice about a restaurant has very little to do with the food.
It might be an arched opening behind a table, a wall that bends around a seating corner or a passage that makes you curious about what lies beyond. Before the menu arrives, you have already taken a photograph.
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Back home, the attraction can be surprisingly similar. You save a picture of a kitchen entrance and begin wondering whether your own doorway could look like that. Or whether the sharp corner beside the living room really needs to stay sharp.
There is something appealing about a curve in a room full of straight lines. It gives an ordinary opening a little presence, changing the view without necessarily filling it with more things.
And although these interiors feel contemporary, the shapes themselves carry echoes of much older spaces.
A different view from the sofa
An apartment can have comfortable furniture, matching curtains and carefully chosen lights, yet still feel like a collection of boxes.
Often, it is the connections between those boxes that receive the least attention.
Take the opening between the living and dining rooms. From the sofa, it forms part of the view every day. Giving it an arched profile can turn the dining table beyond into a framed scene, with a pendant, a vase or a window becoming part of the composition.
The kitchen entrance can play a similar role. When it faces the dining area, its outline is as much a part of that room as the furniture. A gently rounded top introduces a detail where there might otherwise be a plain rectangular doorway.
Practical decisions still come first, including whether cooking smells and noise make a door necessary.
But once those needs are addressed, the entrance can contribute something to the room's character. It becomes a part of the home worth looking at, even when nobody is walking through it.
The shape does the decorating
At Boho in Banani, that relationship between an opening and its surroundings is easy to appreciate.
A succession of cream-coloured arches runs along the dining area, their textured surfaces catching the warm light. Wooden tables and woven chairs sit beneath them, while cushioned seating follows the wall.
The pale floor, dotted with small dark squares, adds pattern without drawing attention away from the arches.
There is plenty to notice, although the colours remain restrained. The repeated shapes give the room much of its character, recalling the sheltered rhythm of an older veranda.
That is a useful idea to bring home. A living room does not always need another decorative object. Sometimes, what changes it is the outline of the entrance or the way a wall meets the next space.
Around the bend
Curves can also change how an interior reveals itself.
At Glam Freak, a beauty salon in Bashundhara R/A, sandy-toned walls bend around a narrow passage. The wooden floor follows their sweep, and lighting along the base picks out a border of pale stones.
Overhead, white, fabric-like material hangs in soft folds, bringing an airy quality to the warm, earthy setting.
Only part of the passage is visible at once. The rest appears as visitors move around the bend, giving the space a sheltered, almost cave-like feel.
In an apartment, a curved wall near the entrance can create a similarly gradual view of the living area. Beside a sofa, it might help define a seating corner. Along a bedroom passage, a rounded turn can soften the transition from the shared rooms to the more private ones.
The idea is to consider what people see as they move, alongside how the room looks from one fixed spot.
Something familiar in the outline
There is something to learn from older buildings here.
Think of a veranda lined with arches, or a deep doorway that offers a glimpse into a courtyard. Part of the appeal is the shape itself. But it is also the way the openings frame a view, catch the light and lead from one space into another.
Those details can find a place in a modern interior without bringing all the ornament along with them.
An apartment may borrow the gentle curve of an old doorway and finish it in plain plaster. A restaurant might repeat a series of arches, giving a long dining room the sheltered feel of a veranda.
The proportions deserve as much attention as the outline. An arch that feels generous beneath a high ceiling may look squeezed into a smaller room. Its width, depth and relationship with the space around it need to be considered together.
That is where borrowing from the past becomes interesting: taking a detail we recognise and allowing it to feel at home somewhere new.
Knowing when to stop
Once an arch works in one place, it is tempting to add another.
Soon, the doorway, shelves, mirror and television panel are all repeating the same shape. In a small apartment, that can become visually tiring.
A curve benefits from ordinary straight lines around it. A rectangular dining table or a simple bookshelf can provide balance without making the room feel rigid.
Space matters, too. A curved wall may leave an awkward gap behind a cabinet. An arch fitted inside an opening reduces its clear dimensions. Existing walls and structural elements need professional assessment before alterations begin.
The design should still accommodate chairs being pulled out, doors opening and people passing comfortably.
A softer way to shape a space
Perhaps the appeal of curves is how much they can change without adding very much.
A kitchen doorway gains character. A living room entrance frames the view beyond. A passage becomes somewhere you notice, even if you walk through it several times a day.
Borrowing from older architecture gives these everyday details a familiar warmth, while simple finishes allow them to sit comfortably in a modern setting.
Over time, the novelty of the shape may fade. What remains is the pleasure of a room that feels thoughtfully put together, right down to the way you enter it.
