The return of the arched mirror

The arch has come back the way these things always do — quietly at first, in a few hotel lobbies, and then everywhere. The soft top reads as warm and architectural where a hard rectangle reads as utilitarian. Done well, it feels timeless. Done as a trend, it dates the moment the trend turns.

Proportion is everything

A good arch is mostly about the radius. Too tight and it looks like a tombstone; too shallow and it looks like a mistake. We tool to a small family of radii that have proven themselves across hundreds of rooms, and we will gladly talk a buyer out of a curve that photographs badly at eye level.

The way to keep an arch from feeling like a fad is to let it be the only gesture. A plain frameless arch with an honest light will outlast three cycles of fashion. Add a brass frame, a fluted edge, and a coloured backlight and you have built something that belongs to exactly one year.