Inspirations

Castel Béranger

It was Hector Guimard, celebrated designer of the sinuous, plant-inspired Paris Metro entrances, who designed the first Art Nouveau building in the French capital. He designed everything, from the architecture down to the last decorative detail – from the wrought iron gates and the blown glass to the furniture – with stylised interpretations of plant and flower motifs. The wallcoverings of the Creative Collection Chapter XI take their cue from his nature-inspired approach.

Guimard travelled to Brussels in 1895, where he met Victor Horta, designer of Art Nouveau archetype, Hotel Tassel, and was immediately won over by this new architectural style in which function, structure, space and decoration are expressed in total unity.

His testing ground was the Castel Béranger, an apartment building built in the 16th arrondissement of Paris between 1895 and 1898 for Madame Anne-Elisabeth Fournier, who he persuaded to embrace the wave of innovation coming in from Belgium.

Glamora Diary Inspirations Castel Béranger

Glamora’s Creative Collection Chapter XI reinterprets the details of Castel Béranger - winner of the first Paris facade competition - taking inspiration from the original designs reproduced in the fascinating book Guimard published to accompany his work.

In Lovers, Castel Béranger’s main entrance hall is interpreted as a winter garden, while Per sempre references the glass of the staircase.

“Nature is a great book in which we can find our inspiration”, he declared. In Empathy, plant motifs transport the visitor into a dreamlike natural world of oversize proportions.

A homage to nature and the power of the world of plants and flowers which is still highly relevant today, and which we find in the writings of philosophers such as Emanuele Coccia, whose work includes “The Life of Plants: A Metaphysics of Mixture”. Because where there is nature, there is life.