Otherworldly Opulence

Su Hsia Chen liked her apartment on Paris’s Avenue Kléber, but had trouble sleeping due to the noisy cafe below. Eventually, at her husband Gérard Houa’s suggestion, she viewed an apartment nearby, falling for it immediately despite its dilapidated condition. It was a good job she did — unbeknown to her, Houa had already bought it. ‘I don’t think any work had been done to it in the last hundred years,’ Chen says. ‘It was a total ruin, with yellowstained walls and parts of the parquet floor missing. But the proportions were great.’ She was also drawn to the natural light and view of the nearby Musée Guimet. And she knew the perfect designer to lick it into stylish shape — Damien Langlois-Meurinne. ‘Everything he designs is very elegant,’ she says. ‘It’s very pure and modern.’

Langlois-Meurinne’s interiors bring together meticulous precision, understated opulence and a certain Gallic flair. ‘My architectural approach tends to be quite rational and very rectilinear,’ he explains, ‘whereas the furniture I use has freer, more curvaceous forms.’ That contrast is evident in Chen’s apartment, where one of his main objectives was to maintain the classic Parisian architectural features. ‘For me, it’s important to keep traces of the past and integrate more contemporary touches,’ he says. Minimalistic bronze arches frame the doorways, in stylistic opposition to the elaborate scroll-like mouldings of the original pediments above them. The designer established strong axes, as witnessed by the alignment of the doors he created along the front of the flat. He also employs niches to create intimacy, and aims to give each room a distinct character. ‘For me, it not only makes a home feel larger, it also gives it more substance.’

Particularly interesting here are the ceiling treatments — a feature Langlois-Meurinne feels is often overlooked. In the sitting room, he installed a series of rhythmically placed white boxes, some of which incorporate spot lighting and others speakers. Phylliform shapes have been cut out of the dining room ceiling, while similar forms are found in relief in the spectacular entrance hall. The latter conceal the air-conditioning system, and are offset by the sinuous black lines that snake across the floor and endow the space with a sense of movement.

Throughout, Langlois-Meurinne was confronted with numerous constraints; for instance, he could move few walls due to the building’s regulations. To overcome this, he inversed the placement of the kitchen and master bathroom, and transformed a former guest room into a study, where the maelstromlike pattern of the rug helps to distract from the room’s irregular shape. He also contended with a lack of symmetry in the sitting room: it proved impossible to situate the fireplace centrally between two identical doorways due to the numerous chimney flues embedded in the wall. Instead, he created a finely balanced equilibrium with a flamboyantly sculptural plaster fireplace inspired by 60s and 70s versions by Parisian ceramicist Valentine Schlegel. He also opted for irregular, freeflowing furnishings, such as the vintage Vladimir Kagan sofa and Armand Jonckers cocktail table.

Another of Langlois-Meurinne’s fortes is his striking use of materials. In the study, rustic pine is juxtaposed with more precious korina, while in the master bedroom a heavily veined Venetian marble provides dramatic impact. The most striking space, however, is the kitchen, where both the walls and cupboard doors are faced with tin powder-coated wood panels crafted to resemble the surface of water. ‘It creates an almost immaterial effect,’ he says, ‘and reflects the light in a very interesting way.’ For Chen, it conjures up an almost otherworldly atmosphere. ‘It’s almost as if I could be on Mars.’

In the study, a Scarabée desk designed by Langlois-Meurinne for Editions Pouenat sits atop a custom wool and silk rug also by Langlois-Meurinne. The generous sofa is another LangloisMeurinne piece, and is upholstered in a velvet from Dedar

A vintage Vladimir Kagan-designed sofa complements another custom rug by Langlois-Meurinne in silk and hemp fibre. The fireplace, also designed by Langlois-Meurinne, was inspired by those created by the ceramicist Valentine Schlegel in the 1960s and 1970s. The two green armchairs are vintage Marco Zanuso Lady chairs, and the vintage brass coffee table was designed by Armand Jonckers

Facing page

In the dining room, vintage Ico Parisi chairs sit by a brushed-brass and marble table by Langlois-Meurinne This page

The kitchen walls are clad with sculpted wood panels onto which tin powder has been applied, polished, oxidised and varnished to create an entirely unique finish. A Last Night Branche pendant designed by LangloisMeurinne for Editions Pouenat is suspended above the corian counter