Avenue Montaigne

A Haussmannian apartment stripped back to its bones, then dressed in smoked oak, Arabescato marble and silk the colour of tobacco.

The brief was a home for a collector who wanted the art to speak first. We removed three partition walls, lowered nothing and raised everything — the ceilings regained their original mouldings and the enfilade now runs uninterrupted for twenty-six metres.

Every surface was chosen to absorb light rather than reflect it. The result is an apartment that feels lit from within, even on the greyest Parisian afternoon.