Paris V Apartment

In the heart of Paris, a stone’s throw from Notre Dame Cathedral, our client found his pied-à-terre.

“I want to make it a jewel, a place where I feel at home and can receive my friends,” he told us, seated at a café table on Ile Saint Louis, where we had arranged to meet.

The main challenge was working on the spatiality of the entrance area, where the corridor, bathrooms, and kitchen formed a sequence of narrow, compressed, and poorly functional spaces.

Through a series of targeted architectural solutions, the entrance space, previously a marginal corridor, was expanded to become a proper room.

Relocating the bathrooms to the façade, facing the internal courtyard, creates the necessary space to accommodate the kitchen overlooking the entrance, in close connection with the dining room.

On the wall opposite the kitchen, we inserted a wardrobe concealed behind a full-height mirror. A new backdrop that doubles the entrance space and dissolves its boundaries: a spatial device typical of Parisian interiors, here, among other things, a useful support for one last glance before leaving home.

The entrance floor, a damier in Italian terrazzo in ochre and ivory bordered by a diamond-patterned frame, is a nod to our client’s cultural and sentimental universe.

On the wall opposite the mirror, the kitchen is designed to be functional and convivial. The small marble comptoir invites conversation as if we were in a Parisian bistro.

The entrance is thus transformed into a true welcoming space capable of hosting an intermediate moment in which to relieve guests of their coats and offer a glass of wine before seating them in the dining room.

The lacquered furniture, tone-on-tone with the walls, integrates into the space and conceals small glass accents that dialogue with the floor tones, recalling Art Deco decorative motifs.

In the main rooms, our intervention focused on enhancing the original fine finishes: the oak parquet was treated until it regained its original luster, the stone fireplaces, mirrors, moldings, and boiseries were preserved and restored.

At the center of the space, between the living room and dining room, a new folding screen door was inserted into the existing arched opening. A moving frame that allows the space to be reconfigured according to usage needs.

The glass panels are unique pieces made in bullseye glass by an Italian artist for this space.

The bedroom furniture, entirely custom-made, creates an intimate and relaxing atmosphere.

The large wardrobe conceals the entrance to the dressing room; inside it, a wooden niche is carved out where our client displays a vase from his collection.

The brass handles, custom-designed for the wardrobe, echo the headboard lights in a play of understated and elegant accents.

Next to the bed, set within a niche, a secretaire completes the bedroom furnishings.

“On s’oriente à l’intérieur comme dans un souvenir” Georges Perec, Espèces d’espaces

photo credits
Francesco Stelitano