Paris 2

Paris Art Deco Buildings: Apartments – 16^th Arrondissement

Paris Art Deco Buildings 5: Apartments Rue Raynouard 15

There is an element of luxury in the use and treatment of facing materials on this apartment. The use of gilding and inlays gives it the sense of being a palace.

Paris Art Deco Buildings 6: Apartments Rue Raynouard 19

Though perhaps possessing the plainest of the apartments on this stretch of the Rue Raynouard, number 19 is lifted by the stone sculpture depicting maternity above the entrance into the courtyard.

Paris Art Deco Buildings 7, 8, 9: Apartments Rue Raynouard 21, 23, 25

We find here three unique, and yet interrelated, adjacent 1930s apartment blocks along the Rue Raynouard. Léon Nafilyan was the architect and his concrete skeleton was embellished by a façade faced with a golden coloured stone which unifies the three. The exterior design elements both unite and differentiate the three buildings, including the mullioned windows of 21, the continuous vertical stairwell windows of 23 and the angled bay windows and balconies of both 23 and 25.

Paris Art Deco Buildings 10: Apartments Rue Benjamin Franklin 25b

The architect of Rue Benjamin Franklin 25b, Auguste Perret was the eldest of three sons born to a stonemason. Auguste, and his brothers, learned the trade of stonemasonry, but Auguste wanted more… he wanted progress and studied the new field of reinforced concrete, along with other modern architectural necessities.

The entire family was involved with the creation of Rue Benjamin Franklin 25b, with the 29 year old Auguste providing the design. Constructed 1902-1904 it became regarded as a ground breaking work for the modernist movement. In addition to using an expressed reinforced concrete frame, it used a precursor of the open plan in that the apartment partition walls were non-structural. Auguste Perret was a thoughtful planner and, uncertain of the fate of the concrete many years in the future, decided to cover its exterior manifestations with decorative tiles.

While the time period of this building may be slotted to Art Nouveau, the nature of the tiles, with their tight groupings of almost monochrome flowers, points to Art Deco. In any case, less than a decade later Perret became involved with the creation from 1911 to 1913 of the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, generally regarded as the first Art Deco building in the world.

Paris Art Deco Buildings 11: Apartments Chaussee la Muette 20

This elegant, five storey apartment block went up in 1920. Like other architects of this time Charles Labro had been designing Art Nouveau buildings up to this time yet stayed aware of, and moved with, the changes. Classical elements and flower arrangements became de rigueur.

Paris Art Deco Buildings 12: Apartments Rue de L’Assomption 21

Sitting at the corner of the Rue de L’Assomption this is in essence a stripped down version of a typical Parisian apartment block. The entrance is worth paying attention to with stepping in to a fine Art Deco gate and some excellent flower arrangements around it.

Paris Art Deco Buildings 13, 14, 15: Apartments Rue Mallet-Stevens

Also in the 16^th arrondissement of Paris, in the Auteuil area, is a cul-de-sac named after the extraordinary architect who designed the mansions/villas on it: Rue Mallet-Stevens. Robert Mallet-Stevens, 1886-1945, was born into a family of wealthy art collectors and was the nephew of Adolphe Stoclet. His uncle had the Viennese architect Josef Hoffmann design the Palais Stoclet, which was then constructed for him 1905-1910 in Brussels. This project had a profound influence on the young Mallet-Stevens, who as a teen was already attending a course at l’École Spéciale d’Architecture of Paris, 1903-1906.

He developed a unique approach that garnished early modernist attitudes with Art Deco touches. Born into a wealthy environment, his early works were sufficiently convincing that he was able to finance the creation of a small, private street containing mansions/villas for wealthy connoisseurs, completed in 1927. Among the residents were the brother sculptors Joel and Jan Martel, and the financier Daniel Dreyfus.

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