Feel the Shift, until 14 September
This year’s festival ambassadors Ana Hernández and Christophe Penasse of Spanish practice Masquespacio are coming off a sabbatical in Bali, where they reconsidered the whys, hows and whats of creating — specifically, their hyper-modern Mas Creations range. Their showcase attempts to put into wood, silk and velvet what makes a space feel human. Set up like a home, the elements exhibit intuitive concept and construction, free of archetypal references. They contain surprising colour and material combinations and a truly welcoming quality.
Uchronia at Grand Palais, until 20 September
The multidisciplinary design collective Uchronia has built an amazing portfolio of bold, meme-inducing residential and restaurant projects, and they’ve chosen the Grand Palais — recently restored with spectacular precision — for their M&O showcase. Their Grand Bouquet, launching today, evokes the art nouveau curves, mosaic floors and historic bloom of windows in the palace’s Rotonde. The petals glow in a bulbous canopy, sheltering the bespoke seating the designers have installed below.
Studio Andrée Putman, until 19 September
In February, Olivia Putman launched a new Rive Gauche atelier dedicated to the work of her mother, Andrée, located in a 1930s schoolhouse and styled as a home to luxuriate in. Now is the time to discover the gallery-like space, while the courtyard garden is still lush with foliage. Inside, Putman and her partner Aurélie Laure have curated reissued furniture like the iconic Éléphant bench and Quatre Feuilles table alongside contemporary creations.
Trone flagship, until 19 September
An unexpected delight this year, the French artisanal bathroom designer has caught our eye with its contemporary rethink of a bog standard necessity. The brand launched its new Orgueil toilet in a sculptural porcelain cube form that belies functional necessity. Its fluid presence is shaped under maximum tension, seemingly frozen in movement; joints and hardware are fully integrated to protect the clarity of the silhouette. None of it demands to be hidden away.
Zoometry at Galerie Mouvement Modernes, until 23 September
Architects from the local practice RDAI collaborated with the rug producer Creative Matters on six luxury pieces evoking the minuscule structure of butterflies’ wings and spiders’ webs. Using parametric modelling software, the architects rendered dynamic 3D shapes into 2D form while specialist Tibetan artisans rendered them in wool and Chinese silk. The final products, displayed at Galerie Mouvements Modernes, shimmer in the light.
Astre Mobile, Hôtel de la Marine, until 27 September
A cabinet of curiosities wheels into Place de la Concorde in the form of a transparent Citroën Méhari. Parked in the courtyard of the 18th-century Hôtel de la Marine, the vehicle is imaginatively constructed from ‘car parts’ produced in onyx, porcelain, driftwood, lacquer and shell-embedded upholstery, assembled by Antoine Tauvel of the craft-forward design studio Maison Lacmé. Tavel recruited a dozen French craftspeople to design the various components — a speedometer of feather marquetry, a porcelain gearshift, white-onyx hubcaps… The odometer is frozen at 40,075km, the circumference of the Earth.
