Contemporary stainless steel house

Christophe Lab architect
1990
Paris 20E

3 bedrooms
1 bathroom, 1 shower room
Garden: 68 m²

Description

A contemporary house in stainless steel.

This stainless steel house is an exceptional example of contemporary architecture, illustrating the ‘deconstruction’ movement in architecture that Frank Gehry, the architect of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, is so famous for. Its complex volumes have earned it the nickname “Little Beaubourg”, in reference to the architecture of Renzo Piano.

Architect Christophe Lab built this house for his family in 1990. It was completely renovated in 2003 by its new owners, who called on the services of craftsmen and artists.

This town house, which boasts a 68 m2 garden with a fountain and a river, takes its place in a very pleasant setting in an urban area. Built on a high level, the house offers large, light-filled rooms. On the garden level, a vast room with a large undulating metal bar serves as a relaxation area opening onto the garden. The ground floor features a 4-car garage with an adjoining workshop. The 1st floor, with its large south-west-facing glazed façade and terrace, is largely open to the outside and houses the double-height living room, dining room and kitchen, centred around an iroko bar. A boat-style gangway leads to an office on the mezzanine. The upper floors are devoted to private areas: the 2nd floor has two bedrooms and a bathroom; the 3rd floor has an office and a shower room surrounded by a wooded terrace with a solarium.

Located in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, the house offers a privileged view of Père-Lachaise and its hundred-year-old trees. Just 300 metres from Place Gambetta, it is part of a fast-growing district that is home to many young professionals.

An innovative metal building

The architecture of the house plays on materials: covered in sheets of metal, it is a veritable ode to this material. Its imposing glass and metal façade on the street is full of asymmetrical geometric lines and recesses, revealing the different spaces in the house: the cylinder enclosing the staircase, the large double-height bay in the living room and the terrace on the upper level. On the other hand, the smooth, regular façade overlooking the garden asserts the framework of the house. The gateway to the house evokes the world of submarines, echoing the ship-like gangway that structures the main volume.

Inside, the building’s structure of exposed metal beams is combined with wood: light oak parquet flooring and large bars create a warm space illuminated by coloured spotlights.

This innovative architecture, which takes on the appearance of a contemporary town house, is also a smart house: its owners have developed home automation systems, making it both a unique and highly pleasant place to live.

Bernard Saillol

Christophe Lab’s Paris-based practice, which opened in 1978, loves innovative materials and forms. In 1991, the quality of the firm’s work was recognised when Christophe Lab won the “Nouveaux albums de jeunes architectes” prize, awarded by the French Ministry of Public Works to talented young architects.

The agency has numerous projects to its credit, including the construction of a nursery and primary school in Nazelles-Négron (2000), the development of the Nord industrial estate in Amiens (2000), the Victor Jousselin hospital in Dreux (1996), and the renovation of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle in Paris (1995-2002).

Christophe Lab has also designed and built a number of houses in the Paris region, including luxurious homes in concrete, metal and glass, such as the Film house in the 17th arrondissement (2000) or the house on rue de l’Ermitage in the 20th arrondissement (1989), and an all-aluminium house like the one on rue des Rondeaux.

The architecture of this house traces the history of metal architecture. Its metal beams link it to the first steps of iron architecture, to the halls of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, while its garden facade is directly inspired by the regular grids of the free facade theorised by Le Corbusier, in the image of the facade of the Fondation Suisse built by the architect in 1933 at the Cité Universitaire Internationale. Finally, the street façade, representative of deconstructivist architecture, evokes the complex forms of the work of American architect Frank Gehry, such as the Gehry house in Santa Monica (1978), a collage of metal elements on a timber-framed house, or the Bilbao museum, a building full of angles and curves covered in silver titanium plates.

The house was published soon after its construction in various architecture magazines such as Architecture intérieure créé or Empreinte, and was also the subject of a feature in Télérama magazine. This bold house is the agency’s best-known achievement, and it most often illustrates articles devoted to the demanding work of this innovative agency.

Additional information

Architecte

Christophe Lab

Géolocalisation

Paris 20ème