“We didn’t want to keep anything from the existing little house, which had been completely cobbled together over the years by its previous owner,” Antoine Geiger and August Hijlkema, founding architects of Geiger & Hijlkema, say. It’s true: The new variety of spaces make the home’s 646 square feet seem twice as big. “We cleaned up the whole thing, right down to the staircases. Everything was reworked. We tried to think of the home as a place where time stands still. You enter this cul-de-sac, then push open a gate, and you find yourself in this marvelous garden. Suddenly Paris feels far away.” With a certain modesty to its form, but with a great richness in terms of the various volumes and the way that they are arranged, the pair created a succession of small spaces that compress and expand, where you cross light and half-light and you wind your way up three levels with two terraces and ceilings of various heights.
A good place to start with this home tour is the large picture window that brings the garden indoors. The entrance and principal bedroom on the first floor take advantage of the calm of the courtyard, with the latter an intimate suite that feels like a bamboo box complemented by a bathroom with black Zellige tiles and a green onyx sink. The sink, which was made from scrap stone salvaged from a marble workshop, added a luxurious touch while staying within the tight budget. The centerpiece of the house is the staircase, a sculptural feature that widens slightly as it ascends, and whose second flight of steps features treads of galvanized steel gratings to let in light. On the first level, the living area opens onto a large stone terrace overlooking the garden, which has a railing covered in Virginia creeper.
A mineral-green terrazzo floor creates the impression of the home being grounded in its location, while a mesh of solid oak slats gives rhythm to the space, introducing warmth and character. “If we start with light, simple, and luminous walls, the floors can be a means of introducing materiality and a real personality to the home.” The kitchen, at the top of the first staircase, leads to the dining room, which then opens onto the cathedral-ceiling living room in this sequence of interconnected spaces. Here, we understand the architects’ intention a repetition of the idea of compression and expansion in the home’s sequence of volumes. “The height of the ceiling, which is low in the kitchen, rises in the dining room and then becomes full height in the living room, allowing us to fit three different functions into a 237-square-foot space.”
In this sculptural space, materials play a delicate balancing act. The walls are whitewashed, as in Greece, giving the home its luminous vibrancy. Meanwhile, the kitchen is composed of wood, stainless steel, and aged mirror, while the furniture is metal, lacquer, and leather. The limewash paint is complemented by the bush-hammered concrete fireplace surround, a contrast that the duo describes “a happy accident.” The oxidized and distressed mirrors in the kitchen are combined with a more than 16-foot-long stainless-steel worktop that will stand the test of time. In the bathroom, traditional glazed tiles add their imperfections: “Right now, this very minimal project may seem a little polished, but it’s going to develop a patina. The parquet will suffer and the terrazzo will take on stains. We like knowing that the house will evolve. We shouldn’t seek the absolute perfection of an impossible-to-maintain interior; the spirit of a house is also about taking on the marks of time.”
Let’s pause for a moment to consider the kitchen’s sideboard mirror, a horizontal strip at eye level that enlarges the space like a window designed by Le Corbusier. “It reflects the modernism in interior design that we are all exposed to as architects. We approach interior projects with architectural, landscape, and even urban-design principles in mind. Here, for example, we’ve traced the history of Paris’s Père-Lachaise district, how its urban layout came about, then we look at this courtyard and what businesses it would have housed in the 18th century. This enables us to think about what new visions we can introduce into these spaces, and to think of them cinematically in the sense of a story board, à la Alvaro Siza: the landing, the threshold, the view when you enter... we work with sequences, tableaux.”
Retracing the tour of the house, and this time with an eye on its furnishings, the entrance with its 1970s Arbre coat rack by Terence Conran gives the impression of an extension of the garden. Climbing the staircase, we come to the dining room, where chairs by Mies van der Rohe create a roundness that matches that of the staircase but contrasts with the orthogonal terrazzo floor set within oak frames. As we pass a spectacular round table, with its green steel base and large black lacquered wood top, our eye is caught by a Scandinavian sofa by Johannes Anderson from the 1960s, an FM33 armchair by Cees Braakman in black leather, and, on either side of the rough-hewn fireplace and its mirrored altarpiece, traditional Baoulé chairs sitting atop piles of art books. They add soul and a little lightness to the space. Everywhere, paintings, ceramics, and glass pieces add additional layers.
In addition to their work as architects, Geiger and Hijlkema have set up their gallery, Rooom Service, under the artistic direction of Arthur Boyer, in order to promote synergies with the work of young artists and designers as well as the notion of ensembliers, an inclusive design concept that encompasses everything from huge urban design projects to the details of door handles. “A global vision and theoretical thinking lead to precision at all scales. We’re opposed to the segmentation of professions; our vocation, as an agency, is to think on all scales at once.” With this home, that mission was clearly accomplished by this talented duo.
