Description
Seventies spirit in the Paris skies
In the heart of the 11th arrondissement, this flat, renovated in 2019 by the Heros agency, offers an unobstructed panoramic view of the sky and the great Parisian monuments, in a building designed by the architect Maurice Novarina in the late 1960s.
Located on the fifteenth and top floor, this 51 m² apartment faces south-south-west. It comprises an entrance hall, a living room with a fully-equipped open-plan kitchen, a bedroom with dressing room and a shower room. A cellar completes the flat.
Its spaces have a minimalist contemporary aesthetic, characterised by a dialogue between the clarity of the immaculate volumes and a set of integrated oak furniture fitted on one side of the living area. Designed to measure, these furnishings mark the entrance, provide plenty of storage for the living area and define the kitchen with a counter.
This uncluttered approach offers great freedom of use and preserves visual perspectives towards the spectacular panorama of the Parisian landscape, framed by vast picture windows with metal frames.
Close to all local shops and amenities, this flat enjoys the peace and quiet of the residence. It is ideally located: 2 minutes’ walk from the Rue des Boulets metro station (M9), less than 8 minutes’ walk from Faidherbe-Chaligny station (M8) and five minutes from Place de la Nation (M1, M2, M6, M9, RER A).
An inspired contemporary renovation
The Heros agency designed a sober layout, guided by the concrete structure of the building. The non-load-bearing walls of the flat were knocked down to create a vast living space, offering flexibility of use in line with contemporary lifestyles. A single piece of wooden furniture, incorporating a large proportion of the flat’s storage space and all its technical elements, gives this volume a hierarchical structure.
The choice of wood species, retro light switches and covering materials (light-coloured carpet in the bedroom, blue mosaic in the bathroom) pay homage to the aesthetics of the 1970s.
Univers 21: geometry and synthesis of the arts
The Univers 21 complex was built by Maurice Novarina in 1967. Inspired by the modernism of Auguste Perret and Le Corbusier, the architect used reinforced concrete for the structure of the building and designed a play of offsets on the façade with the volumes of the balconies, breaking the monotony of the whole. The use of stilts, a resurgence of Corbuséan principles, provides vast communal spaces, serving the entire ground floor. The cruciform floor plan of the residence frees up open-air spaces, laid out as communal gardens for residents, offering a piece of nature right in the heart of Paris.
Characteristic of the period’s achievements, the entire building is covered in light-coloured ceramic tiles, creating plays of light on the surface of the facades. The communal areas and garden ponds are adorned with colourful mosaics in geometric patterns, cultivating the spirit of Arts Synthesis in vogue in the 1960s-1970s. Outstanding for its architectural quality, this complex perfectly illustrates the model of private residences of the Trente Glorieuses period, in terms of its materials, aesthetics and construction.
Maurice Novarina
Maurice Novarina (1907-2002) was an architect and town planner from Haute-Savoie, who worked between 1933 and 2000 in the Paris, Normandy and Rhône-Alpes regions. He designed many homes and facilities, but his work is often recognised for its religious buildings, which led him to work with Père Couturier, a priest and theorist of sacred art, as well as with modern artists such as Georges Rouault, Fernand Léger and Marc Chagall. Chief architect of civil buildings and national palaces (now chief architect of historic monuments) and professor at the École Spéciale d’Architecture for ten years, then, from 1968 to 1976, at the École des Beaux-arts de Paris, Maurice Novarina was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Paris on 6 June 1979.
An emblematic figure of 20th century architecture, he is also known for his research into the value of space and a rational, pragmatic approach to architecture. In doing so, he drew on the models of the modernist doctrine (Auguste Perret and Le Corbusier) to create the ‘ordinary’ architectures that were ubiquitous after 1945 in the context of reconstruction and during the Thirty Glorious Years;
To mark the centenary of his birth, a retrospective exhibition was dedicated to him in 2007 by the Haute-Savoie Council for Architecture, Town Planning and the Environment.
