Built around a balance of industrial and Art Deco elements, interior designer Rodolphe Parente custom-crafts a Parisian apartment with the help of local artisans.
Housed in a 1930s Art Deco building near Les Invalides in Paris, French interior designer Rodolphe Parente strikes a nuanced balance between tradition and contemporary flair. The result is a home shaped by contrasts, meticulous craftsmanship and a subtle rebellious spirit.
The owner, a creative and long-time friend, shares Parente’s generational outlook and instinct for unexpected beauty, making the design one of trust, mutual curiosity and creative freedom. “He was drawn to my Contre Soirée installation from 2022,” Parente reflects. “That pastel pink kitchen and wooden bathroom sparked ideas that we evolved — a tension between rigour and warmth, structure and playfulness.”
Rather than reworking the apartment’s original layout, Parente chose to preserve its natural spatial flow. The tone is set immediately in the entryway, where Jasper Morrison’s Mirror Mirror console for Glas Italia and Ettore Sottsass’s Ultrafragola mirror play with light and reflection, introducing a touch of the unexpected. Colour is treated volumetrically, shaping space by carving the apartment into quiet layers that subtly shift as one moves through.
“We added pink and more indulgent, tangy shades,” Parente explains. “Pink is an ambiguous, equivocal colour — slightly unconventional, but still soothing. It operates at different times and evolves with the daylight of Paris.”
In the living room, Parente noticed an original wall moulding above the fireplace and chose to preserve it, allowing the surrounding furniture to respond naturally. A custom sofa follows the curve of the arched windows, bringing softness and scale, while Mario Bellini’s Gli Scacchi structure is reimagined as a coffee table. Pierre Paulin’s Groovy chair and a sculptural side table by Brynjar Sigurðarson introduce a rhythm of contrast. “I’m always looking for friction,” Parente says. “That moment between control and surprise that keeps a space alive.”
The curved partition features a custom-made cushioned bench. Also pictured: the Stilnovo Saliscendi light by Achille & Pier Giacomo Castiglioni.
The contrast in the kitchen is deliberate — striking a balance between rigour and warmth, graphic form and ease. Pictured: the Karl Andersson & Söner Bouquet table by Jesper Ståhl.
Pictured: S11 chairs by Pierre Chapo, the Flos 2097/30 by Gino Sarfatti and the Table En Forme Libre by Charlotte Perriand.
This dialogue continues in the kitchen. Brushed stainless steel cabinetry and a matching splashback introduce an industrial clarity, softened by cork flooring and a peach-toned ceiling overhead. In the corner, a custom curved partition wraps around a built-in bench — a quiet architectural gesture that invites pause and gently disrupts the room’s geometry.
For Parente, craftsmanship underpins the design’s more tactile qualities. Bespoke materials and finishes were developed in close collaboration with local artisans, producing surfaces that are unique, and, most importantly, impossible to replicate. “These details carry the trace of the maker’s hand,” Parente says. “It’s what gives the apartment its depth and soul.”
Elsewhere, vintage and contemporary furnishings coexist effortlessly. From a 1950s Hans J. Wegner daybed to an Isamu Noguchi Vitra Akari 10A floor lamp, each piece was selected for its ability to transcend eras and styles. The interiors are “radical and talkative,” yet grounded in warmth and lived-in ease.
“Above all, I want to arouse curiosity, so I like to create little accidents,” Parente says. “There must be a form of friction between heritage and creativity, areas of resistance and discontinuity.”
Rather than presenting a single design statement, the apartment unfolds through layers — architectural, sensory and symbolic. What emerges is a reflection of Rodolphe Parente’s belief that architecture and design thrive in tension, where heritage meets innovation, and where the unexpected sparks curiosity at every turn.
The living room features custom Rodolphe Parente designs, including the Golosa floor lamp and sofa. Alongside are the Gli Scacchi system by Mario Bellini, the Silent Village side table by Brynjar Sigurðarson and the Groovy chair by Pierre Paulin. Above the fireplace sits an original terracotta moulding that acts as a visual anchor for the space.
The home’s library was entirely custom-crafted by the studio. Pictured: a custom bookcase by Rodolphe Parente, the Adjustable table E 1027 by Eileen Gray, a vintage daybed by Hans J. Wegner and the Vitra Akari 10A light by Isamu Noguchi.
Pictured: the Poltronova Ultrafragola by Ettore Sottsass and the Mirror Mirror console by Jasper Morrison for Glas Italia.
Pictured: the Lumina Daphine by Tommaso Cimini.
