10 RUE AGRIPPA D’AUBIGNÉ – 75004 PARIS – FRANCE
A project with art at its heart.
Designed as a gallery, SO/ Paris shines a new light on Parisian fashion, art, architecture and avant-garde design: uniforms have been designed by Guillaume Henry. Iconic art features throughout the hotel, from Neïl Beiloufa in the lobby, Thomas Fougeirol in the bedrooms to Alice Guittard and Elsa Sahal in the Spa.
And finally, The Seeing City, an immersive installation conceived by Studio Other Spaces, Olafur Eliasson and Sebastian Behmann, that transformed the bay windows of the restaurant and bar facades, situated on the 15th and 16th floors.
RDAI – Denis Montel & Julia Capp, Interior Design Hotel
An entrance exhibiting the lines of a hypnotic emblem, a passageway of soaring columns like a futuristic temple. Step into the lobby, and you get an immediate sense of the place: daring and unlike anything you’ve seen before. And then, you begin to notice the many details that firmly anchor the décor in classic Parisian architecture.
This spectacular lobby honors its setting of riverside Paris. Every line and curve is intentional, coming together to create a world that is familiar yet novel.
Guillaume Henry – Uniforms “vestiaire” staff
Designed by Guillaume Henry, rising fashion star and Artistic Director of fashion house Patou, the uniforms of SO/ Paris are fresh and charming, created for people on the move.
Henry drew his inspiration from the cinematic universe of Wes Anderson, the Louis de Funès film The Little Bather, and the Kodakettes, to create a uniform that is both comfortable and fun.
The Seeing City – Studio Other Spaces, Olafur Eliasson and Sebastian Behmann
The Seeing City, an immersive installation conceived by Studio Other Spaces, Olafur Eliasson and Sebastian Behmann, has transformed the bay windows of the restaurant and bar facades, situated on the 15th and 16th floors, into a machine to expand the mind.
On the 15th floor, a horizontal plane mirror duplicates the scenery, inverting the viewer’s perception. The mirrored ceiling continues this effect from the exterior of the restaurant to its interior, across a wall of glass.
On the 16th floor, a series of kaleidoscope boxes edging the façade reflect the heavens, transporting fragmented and reassembled images of the surrounding sky into the interior.
Neïl Beloufa – The Paris Lighthouse, 2021
(Coloured resin, recycled cardboard packaging and LEDs on a metal structure, 3 metres in diameter)
On entering the magnificent lobby of SO/ Paris, guests are immediately captivated by the illuminated tondo specially commissioned from Neïl Beloufa.
This luminous piece in resin depicts an arrangement of flowers, leaves and water in bold colors, with an aesthetic reminiscent of illustrated albums.
The thick layer of resin hides further surprises, concealing all sorts of debris such as cardboard carrying-cases for beer, pizza boxes, packaging. Here, Neïl Beloufa is making an ironic comment on the ‘throwaway culture’ by integrating these items of rubbish into his work, and by doing so is suggesting a poetic solution to the recycling problem.
Thomas Fougeirol – Photograms, 2021
(Gelatin silver colour print in a Plexiglas box, 40 x 30 cm (each))
SO/ Paris has commissioned artist Thomas Fougeirol to create a group of 113 unique photograms and five photomontages for the bedrooms and suites. These are inspired by his strolls along the Seine, from the Sully Morland neighbourhood to the Trocadero.
Fougeirol has created a giant urban inventory scattered around the private areas of the hotel, using his keen sense of colour and kaleidoscopic montages to create a powerful ensemble.
Alice Guittard
Lisa, 2021 (Polychrome marble, 55 x 38 x 2 cm)
Leg, 2021 (Polychrome marble,55 x 38 x 2 cm)
For the spa booths of the SO/Paris Hotel, Alice Guittard created two artworks in polychrome marble marquetry: a bust and a leg, two representations of women who appear as fragmented by a photographic framing, meticulously cut into the raw material.
Elsa Sahal
Isadora, 2015
Céramique émaillée (33 x 25 x 42 cm)
The sculpture « Isadora » presented in the spa of the SO/Paris Hotel is part of a series entitled «Pole dance», a set of female sculptures with fragmented limbs, playing with the laws of gravity on their vertical metal bars. This artwork, installed in the entrance of the spa, evokes dancer Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) and takes up the spirit of Auguste Rodin’s iconic Iris, Messenger of the Gods (circa 1895), freeing it from its codes, also through humour.