Chateau Landon, Paris, France by Theo Domini
The view is breathtaking. From the windows of the fifth floor of this large Haussmanian building, we overlook one of the most spectacular landscapes of Paris. Every evening, the sun crashes down on this sumptuous horizon and creates an atmosphere that enhances the image of the city a little more. This anachronistic experience that arises from the encounter between the architecture of a 19th century Paris with these supernatural lights was one of the starting points of the project.
Named after the street that houses it, the Chateau Landon project questions what it means to appropriate an existing place. The residence is designed as much as a protective screen for the privacy of its inhabitants as well as a belvedere overlooking this striking landscape.
Inside, the radical abstraction of the steel surfaces contrasts with plasters faded by 100 years of history. They unite and coexist to enhance the sublime event they face.
The environment celebrates the simple pleasures of everyday life and intensifies the experience of basic necessities.
The surfaces guide the gaze instead of stopping it, they free themselves from domestic references which constrain and limit the imagination. It is about questioning one’s own feelings, not according to habits, but on the basis of a spontaneous reaction, out of all time, which comes from desire, from life itself. This approach involves replacing the accumulation of objects with relationships, human, physical, sensitive. First eliminate, then produce comfort.
Inside, the very notion of door, handle is annihilated. Imperceptibly, we pass from bright rooms to a warm and modulated half-light where the softness of the materials dominates.
Everything is a matter of gradation and suggestive limits, the frontier of spaces, never well closed, exasperates curiosity. They oscillate from the grandiose to the Spartan and find their comfort in their serenity, in their charm. It’s not intimidating, it’s not dripping with luxury. It’s something very peaceful, almost friendly where the thickness of the history permeates the project without ever subduing it.