As his profile and wealth increases, so does the danger. His success leads the wealthy industrialist who commissioned him – and who too is leading a double life – to set him up with a factory commission that involves working with a German army officer who admires architecture and art. Even today, in the countryside around Beaune, farmers blame ‘Les Juifs’ for anything from a tractor breaking down to a storm ruining the harvest.ĭespite Lucien’s fears, he accepts, needing money to maintain his lifestyle, which naturally includes a mistress – who is two-timing him with a fanatical Gestapo colonel – even though knowing anyone caught helping a Jew will be tortured and killed. He is a typical French bourgoisie: self-centred, self-important and deeply anti-Semitic – as were most of the population. Struggling architect Lucien Bernard is offered a large sum to devise unique hiding places from the Gestapo for either wealthy or important Jews. What would you risk to help a stranger? What right is worth trading your life for? Today, though, I like to live in spaces that are a mélange of the sophisticated and the bohemian.The Paris Architect is an exquisitely written, vivid and suspenseful story of Paris under German occupation, with all its contradictions, opulence, desperation and fear.īelfoure’s theme is selfishness. I launched my career in the 1980s when the ‘total look’ dominated. I have little desire to lock myself into a style or in an era. “I find it interesting to mix objects and tell a story. Radical Italian design, and the maestros Ettore Sottsass, Carlo Scarpa, Andrea Branzi, Alessandro Mendini, and Carlo Mollino, occupy pride of place in this Paris apartment positions that are ever evolving as the architect likes to try new combinations and push the line-without ever letting the space feel frozen.

A well-rounded aesthete, he knows how to tell the story behind objects and stage them within a space. “I find that the very colorful Sottsass ceramics fit quite well in this ambience.” Growing up in a family of collectors, Zana inherited a strong penchant for vintage design and for creating bold associations. It’s a blank page that invites dashes of color. “I believe many architects like living in spaces full of history that precedes them and goes a little beyond them.” Here, the preference was to opt for a monochrome look with curtains and white walls to accomplish a form of serenity.

Sometimes, spaces that have been modified can still give off the impression of having been there forever, the operative idea being to subtly blend them into, while showing great respect for, an existing setting.

The paris architect by charles belfoure