Decorating

We talk to our favourite interior designers about their life and work

Everything you need to know about parquet, light switches, and using marble like a pro

Who is she? Before she had even completed her degree at the Ecole Nationale Superieur d’architecture de Paris, Laura Gonzalez had set up her own design practice, Pravda Arkitect. ‘A friend offered me the chance to create the interior of a tailoring store and things took off from there,’ she recalls of the project that began 12 years ago. Her big break was re-designing legendary Parisian rock venue Bus Palladium in 2010, where she paired funky 1970s wallpaper with secondhand finds. ‘I was lucky that the client trusted me despite my lack of experience.’ What’s her style? Gonzalez describes it as ‘ bohemian chic,’ with a ‘subtle balance of aged and new, rough and luxury’. This is evidenced in projects such as the Alcazar restaurant in Paris ( bottom), which re-launched last summer with a new look that blends marble, brass and terrazzo with an abundance of greenery. Art often appears alongside antiques in Gonzalez’s projects. She sources them from her favourite Parisian auction house, Piasa, and picks up secondhand items from the city’s Les Puces market. She cites a key influence as the avant-garde work of French interior designer Madeleine Castaing. What are her recent projects? The Manko Peruvian restaurant in Paris, where she paired gold and green malachite with kilim fabrics and lush tropical plants to create something ‘innovative and warm that reflected the style of the cooking.’ She has also worked on several private homes, including a very glamorous Parisian apartment (pictured top and above left) that features a beautiful black marble door frame (details overleaf ) and elegant neutral-coloured living room. What is she currently working on? Two hotels and six restaurants in Paris, ranging from a traditional brasserie to a top secret revamp of an iconic address, plus two new residential projects in London. She says: ‘The most important thing is to tell a story and to understand what that story is going to be from the beginning of a project.’ (pravdaarkitect.wix.com).

Gonzalez’s bohemian-chic style mixes antiques, sourced in her hometown of Paris, with lush greenery and touches of marble