MaterialDistrict

Paris Loft Blurs The Edges With Glass

Sitting on the top two floors by Paris’s place de la Madeleine, this 140 m2 (1500 ft2) residence by Ateliers Michael Herrmann was created by unifying 12 maids’ rooms on two levels. The result is a three bedroom duplex apartment that both preserves the character of the 200 year-old building in which it is located, yet is a uniquely loft-style space in the heart of Paris. The original limestone walls and oak beams have been excavated and displayed with archaeological precision. The addition of a glass floor and walls allows each room to retain a powerful sense of openness, to be visually connected with one another and with the views of the sky and rooftops of Paris.

In one corner of the apartment there is a courtyard terrace, surrounded by five-meter tall glass walls. The terrace appears to be an interior room, containing an antique marble fireplace, mirror, and chandelier against the backdrop of the living “wallpaper” of a seven-meter tall vertical garden that rises up through the two levels of the apartment. The courtyard was conceived as a large glass display case containing a traditional salon of a mid-19th century Parisian apartment. In contrast, the interior fireplace, stair, and other details are contemporary. Inside and outside are strongly contrasted through their design while at the same time the edge between the two is blurred by the vertical garden that continues inside and the floor tiles which appear to pass through the glass and continue outside. The apartment takes on a surreal feeling through this blurring of the edge between the interior and exterior, as well as the multiple layers of transparent and reflective glass surfaces. All of the elements in the apartment are functional, whether inside or outside, including the exterior fireplace. The use of glass is carried through the design, and includes the glass cabinets in the kitchen, and glass tiles, counters, and fixtures throughout the apartment. The three bedrooms are located on both levels at the opposite end of the apartment, served by private bathrooms, and organized around a separate courtyard.

The design was in part inspired by Le Corbusier’s no longer existing penthouse apartment and roof terrace designed for the art collector Charles de Beistegui on the Champs Elysées in Paris in the 1920s. Concerning the Bestegui apartment, Michael Herrman has said: “What was intriguing to me was how Le Corbusier bridged modernism and surrealism in Beistegui’s apartment. I was captivated by the balance between the high-tech rigidity and minimalism of modernism with the playfulness and extravagance of surrealism. One of the first things I designed at Madeleine was the courtyard. All of the other adjacent spaces were designed after and in relation to it as the focus of the space. From the beginning I knew I wanted to treat it as an interior room. The outdoor garden was the most surreal part of Le Corbusier’s design for Beistegui with the fireplace and mirror, and the grass lawn as the ‘carpeting’. In the Besteigui apartment I saw the outside as a kind of reflection of the inside. Another aspect of Le Corbusier’s work in general, and specifically for the Beistegui apartment, was how he would frame views of the urban context. Le Corbusier often controlled and framed views in very specific ways. The walls of the outdoor terrace hid most of the city but revealed certain monuments, and, the camera obscura provided a panoramic view of the city.”

At the Madeleine loft, cameras and mirrors bring in views of the Eiffel Tower and surrounding city in surprising ways. Michael Herrman said: “I wanted to distort reality. I like to think of this apartment as a kind of observatory from where you can see the city past and city present, all at once.”

 

Comments