Known for his distinctive style, Philippe Starck has plenty of experience in designing the interiors of luxury hotels all around the world, from the Hudson Paramount in NYC to Le Meurice Hotel in France. Quite recently, the French creator extended his hospitality resumé by designing the Brach Hotel, which actually opened this month Paris. Today, Paris Design Agenda explores a bit more about the latest five-star hotel in the city of lights.
Originally a 1970s postal service building, clad in concrete and glass, the Brach is located in Paris’s tony 16th arrondissement, a neighborhood that has been long without any notable hotels. The building was entirely overhauled to 5-star standards by the Evok Group, owner of the Nolinski Hotel, also in Paris.
“Brach is all about the period when the Dadaists, surrealists, and architects like Le Corbusier discovered Africa and what would later be known as art brut,” comments Starck. “It’s Bauhaus modernism with African wonder. The Brach could be Pierre Jeanneret’s, Charlotte Perriand’s or Mallet-Stevens’s place, with a nod to Pierre Chareau’s glass house—it just might spark up the revival of this very staid part of the 16th.”
Le Corbusier’s spirit is present in the furniture and room fixtures, warmed up with rosewood walls and inviting beds. Flooded with natural light, the 52 guest rooms and seven suites, boasting spaces of up to 2,000 square feet, have 14-foot-high ceilings—which allowed Starck to play with volume, installing unreachable decorative shelves with eclectic displays of books, photos, and African masks.
The hotel also boasts plenty of amenities, including a fitness center, two pools, a bar, a pastry shop run by Yann Brys (one of the most acclaimed pastry chefs in France), as well as a Mediterranean restaurant. On the rooftop, three mascot hens (Eglantine, Berenice, and Suzi) keep an eye on the 4,300-square-foot vegetable garden, deck, and Jacuzzi.
“My hotels aren’t based on any particular cultural, fashion, or architectural aesthetic. I create mental spaces, emotional surprises, and enigmas. A successful hotel today is a contrast between the purely emotional and purely functional.” – Philippe Starck
Source: Architectural Digest
