Everyone is talking about the recently renovated Maison des Champs Elysées, rooms of which were designed this summer by the avant-garde master from Antwerp, Martin Margiela. So what does it really feel like inside the hotel? J’N’C dropped by to find out.
The Maison des Champs Elysées is a house of tradition: since 1919 it has been the hôtel particulier for the alumni association of the city’s École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, where engineer Gustav Eiffel also studied. But the Maison, built in 1874, is now mainly used as a four-star hotel, which is why the last thing one would expect to see inside is Margiela’s cool surrealism.
As soon as you walk through the inconspicuous entrance, the interior design transports you into a completely different world. The Maison commissioned the Maison to design 17 suites, the restaurant and two lounges. Guests are constantly made to feel disorientated - through trompe l’oeil effects and references to mortal transience that make us pause and think. Coloured blocks, perhaps one nuance lighter than the rest of the wall, suggest sunlight filtering in, a passing shadow, but in reality the sky is overcast and the shadow does not falter. Empty, illuminated picture frames. Thick, white, creased cotton covers and contrasts between white and black.
The rooms exude a mix of disconcerting menace, calm and wit that simply refuses to go away. And if Margiela’s interior design has sparked your interest, you can stop by the Arty Dandy boutique next time you’re in Paris and treat yourself to objects from the “13” line.
