POINT OF VIEW
With a focus on dynamic materials and sculptural elements, interior designer Rodolphe Parente has brought polish and verve to a pied-à-terre in the Triangle d’Or
French interior designer Rodolphe Parente has very clear ideas of what constitutes elegance. “It’s a skilful mix of grace, attitude and irreverence, which is not linked to the notion of good taste,” he asserts.
In his own work, Parente always likes to shake things up a little. “I try to incorporate something a little different — an unusual element that provokes a dialogue,” he says. For the 2017 AD Intérieurs showcase event in Paris, Parente imagined a drycleaner with walls made from the metal cladding you more often find on construction sites. His dream kitchen, meanwhile, has a floor made from tarmac.
But not all of his projects are quite so radical. This 309-square-metre apartment, a pied-à-terre for a French couple based in Singapore, is a perfect case in point. It sits in a building that dates back to 1910 in the Triangle d’Or (Golden Triangle), a highly sought-after part of Paris’s 8th arrondissement bordered by three stylish avenues: Montaigne, George V and the Champs-Elysées. Previously, the space was home to a law firm that had fitted it out with a series of large rooms and bright-red walls.
Parente completely reworked the layout, placing a luxurious master suite at its heart and a family room and two other bedrooms at the rear, which you access through a circular antechamber. “We realised we needed a breathing space and opted for a round form to make it more dynamic and enveloping,” he says. Although Parente removed a number of fireplaces, he was keen to retain other architectural details, such as the cornice mouldings and delicately sculpted windows and doorframes. He also commissioned Paris-based decorative artist Florence Girette to paint a cloudy sky on the vertiginous double-height ceiling in the sitting room and sanded down the wainscoting to give it a lighter look. (Previously, it had been a stodgy dark-wood colour.)
The rest of Parente’s intervention is typical of his work, which is characterised by a rigorous, rectilinear approach. “I like precision and a certain graphic quality to my rooms,” he says. Among his influences, he cites design maestros including Carlo Scarpa, Pierre Chareau and Peter Zumthor, and he claims that you can also trace back the genesis of his style to his childhood. He was born in 1980 in Besançon, a city in the east of France that is overlooked by a fortified citadel designed by Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban in the 17th century. “The style of its architecture has stuck with me,” Parente says. He trained in the offices of Andrée Putman for five years before setting up his own eponymous firm in 2010. Since then, his projects have included residences in Paris and Monaco, a boutique for shoe designer Christian Louboutin in Milan and a furniture collection for Pouenat. Parente’s goal with this apartment was to update the interior by adding a twist to the traditional Parisian framework. “The style of my intervention is quite austere and not particularly French,” he says. “It’s closer to 1930s Italy and the Villa Necchi.”
To anchor the sitting room, Parente imagined a voluminous fireplace made from tile and geometrically arranged blocks of marble. “I wanted something solid that would contrast with the finesse of the sculpted wood panelling,” he explains. He gave a certain order to both the dining room and the study, where vertical lines and an oversized trellis pattern, respectively, accentuate the walls. And in Parente’s world, he even applies colour for its architectural qualities. “I don’t use it in a decorative fashion,” he says. A perfect example is the family room, in which the deep terracotta walls and ceiling embrace visitors.
Parente’s favourite rooms to design in any interior are the bathroom and kitchen, and both here are pure tours de force. The bathroom in the master suite features a tub clad in green granite at its centre and an ingenious interplay of angular forms. The kitchen, meanwhile, is a masterclass in materiality. The breakfast nook is enveloped with ribbed-oak walls, the units are faced with a striking stone veneer and the countertops are in enamelled lava. Parente chose the stone partly because it reminded him of his grandmother’s kitchen. “It’s also really hygienic, durable and very contemporary,” he adds. “Plus, it has a surface that’s not completely flat, so it creates wonderfully blurred reflections.”
Although Parente’s architectural approach may be particularly structured and precise, the way he integrates art and furnishings into his projects appears rather more arbitrary. He likes to create interesting juxtapositions between objects and will often not centre paintings on a wall. “It’s important to have things that work well together and others that don’t,” he says. “There’s nothing more unbearable than a space where everything matches too perfectly. You always need to give a room a touch of spirit.” rodolpheparente.com