T H E D E S I G N I S S U E
14
What are your favor i te mater ials?
What are the stakes today in the hotel business? The qual i ty of mater ials, thei r durabi l i ty, technology, cost , esthet ics… All those elements combined. What we are looking for now is experience. In places we discover, where something is happening, we are happy to experience the possibility of a different life style for a while, for the time of a stay. The hotel as a structure counts a great deal, as does the welcome, the context and the location in a city. Today we’re speaking about a project in progress more par t icular ly, the one at the Domaine de la Re i ne Margo t . Th i s ex t raord i nar y s i t e , a l i s t ed histor ical monument , was a royal vacat ion home and then a place for tranqui l i ty and "fai th". How do you decipher i t? Several aspects in this project captivate me. I enjoy having a site evolve according to an idea and more specifically into its new function. New uses for existing places appeal to me. How to revive a building that has a long past? How to enable visitors who have spent the day at the Porte de Versailles (i.e. a major Paris tradeshow) to have a feeling of tranquility as they cross the door to the hotel? How can we offer them a sort of balcony over the city at the gates to Paris? How can we play on the historical codes and references while remaining contemporary? We wanted to redeem the character of Reine Margot, who also lived here, a literary woman, a patron of the arts. That was obvious.
I prefer materials that form a patina with time, that age well and thus have no age; stone and wood first. New sources of wood, new veneers continually appear. I especially have a fondness for the process of transforming elements: by sandblasting or bush-hammering (hammering with a serrated hammer) stainless steel, wood or Carrare marble; the results obtained are unbelievably rich and diverse. The veins in wood deepen, stainless steel becomes exceptionally matte. We can do the same with stone dyes. This experience is exciting and makes up a leitmotiv that can be found throughout our projects, with this common thread. Do these points in common, this language in a way, make up what i s cal l ed a s tyl e? You are rather ret icent to talk about this subject , why?
It is becoming a style but in fact it is not up to me to qualify it…
In your Dict ionar y of Archi tecture Lovers (ed. Plon) , you can read: "humi l i ty in archi tecture is essent ial in my opinion, truly essent ial to the ar t of bui lding. Let ’s be clear: I don’t mean the archi tecture should be t imid or held back or simply mel t into the mass of other construct ions. I have in mind two necessi t ies, humi l i ty and quest ioning…"
There, I couldn’t say it better, a form of elegance…
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