St Oberholtz Apartments, Berlin Mitte
Located above a hip internet cafe invaded by macbook users, our first try at airbnb is a large, tall and handsome flat. Restored keeping all architectural artefacts, which starkly contrast with the black and white deco and contemporary art. Right on buzzy Rosenthaler strasse, it really ticket all the right boxes.. We « lived like a...
ECAL @ Appartement 50, Citée radieuse
Although Jean-Marc Drut and Patrick Blauwart have obsessively restored this flat to its original state (see their website here), and are graciously opening it to the public on appointment; they don’t intend it to become a museum but a living project. Their clever approach to this challenge is to invite a designer to furbish it...
Appartement 50, Citée Radieuse, Marseille
Thanks to Jean-Marc Drut and Patrick Blauwart, who bought and meticulously restored this well preserved « E1/inferieur/monofacade » apartment in the mythic Citee Radieuse; one can discover an apartment in its original state; a must for anyone with interest in architecture and Le Corbusier’s work. I must here pay tribute to the owners altruism, as not only...
Salon Cote Sud 2015
This year’s edition had a strong accept on craftsmanship as witnessed by the main exhibits by the pond: Glassbolwing: Boqa, the company behind the Acapulco chair revival in France’s terraces Marius Fabre traditional « savon de Marseille » As this year was the 25th birthday of the magazine, there was an extensive collection of limited edition...
Renovation of a 60’s house in Santiago: the Capri project
This is a project located in Calle Capri, Santiago, Chile, thus it will be written in Spanish, but I guess the before-after images speak by themselves anyway! De vuelta a Marseille después de unas semanas muy intensas: la meta de renovar esta casa de Vitacura fue algo exagerada para las 6 semanas de obra que...
Puerto Natales
The gateway to Torres del Paine has a pretty good selection of hotels. We picked the Altiplanico because we had a great stay at the original one in San Pedro before. We where not disappointed by the Patagonia brother: nice ecofriendly architecture (with an interesting exterior insulation made with raw earth bricks), and home made feeling...
The Metropolitan Hotel, Miami, by Paola Navone
We thought of going back to THE Delano, but decided to try another sacred monster of design’s latest venture: a hotel redesigned by Paola Navone sounded like a passport to a blissful stay, and so it was..
NY Design
Searching interesting design shops to check out in NY I found this amazing website: http://bddw.com and it turns out that the shop is even more awesome, unfortunately so are the prices, but that’s quite easily understood, everything here is a one off piece, and it’s pretty clear that a lot of work, thought and expertise goes into...
Hudson Hotel, NY
As a Stark-designed hotel, you can expect some drama within the public space, and that’s really the case starting with the yellow-lit access staircase and the loft-industrialish common-room breakfast lounge with quirky a mix of utilitarian objects like the carts, cosy chesterfields and blazing fire. However, I was much less impressed by the fast-food style...
Jules Cesar hotel, Arles, by Christian Lacroix
Cesar was in great need of some TLC.. it got plenty, and flamboyantly, with a lavish refurbishment by Christian Lacroix.
Salon Cote Sud 2014
The theme this year was « Toiles et Voiles » Although this scenography by Thomas Gentilini was kind of hidden at the back of the back of the garden… it is my favourite with it’s low tech gypsy feel, plenty of good ideas to gather for a summer camp in the garden at home! The fabric...
LX Factory
Like a good girl, I went through the Elle deco list of to-go places, starting with the uber buzzy LX factory, which ended up being partly closed on sunday, but happily had a flee market running all along the main street, to the happiness of my junk addict daughter, who follows (some) of her mothers’...