Interview with Edouard François, the architect behind the design of Fouquet’s Barrière Paris Hotel.

What inherited expertise have you reinterpreted in your project for the Fouquet’s Barrière Hotel?

At Fouquet’s, we faced an ensemble of seven buildings constructed in both true and faux Haussmann-style and a building dating from the 70s that formed a near-complete island in the Triangle of Gold, at the corner of Avenue des Champs-Elysées and Avenue Georges V. The Barrière Group wanted to unify these various elements to produce a seventh Parisian Palace and endow it with a strong image.

I took inspiration from several wall tapestries belonging to my family that had fascinated me when I was growing up. I remember the discontinuities between the lais, the motifs that would be brusquely disrupted. Above all this, several portraits of our ancestors were hung up without any seeming link with the motif along the wall. This is how I came to invent the “cast-and-punctured” (« moulé-troué ») concept you see at Fouquet’s. We faithfully copied the Haussmann-style façade from the island.

We then applied this to the façades during the renovation. These façades were then pierced by large openings, totally independent of the Haussmann design but corresponding to the plans and the visual comfort of the rooms.