Studio Anne Holtrop . photos: © François Coquerel
Architect Anne Holtrop was her choice. She wanted an Experience, something natural but strange more than something simply beautiful. Those were her words. And Charlotte Chesnais found an answer to her questions in the work of this young Dutchman. A much more radical answer. When they first met, at home in Paris, he was holding that answer in his hands. It was a piece of acrylic material, like a block of ice, mysterious and futuristic. The result of his own architectural interrogations. But Anne had never tried making it transparent before.
This would be an adventure. A year later, a big plaque, strange and translucent and dense, holding sand from some unknown planet, runs across this new space, this timeless jewel box. The boutique, then, houses two huge monolithic blocks with their surprising ripples and reliefs, their inner glints. A few hours ago, you catch yourself thinking, they might have been as fluid as flowing magma.
This base, mirrored by a similar ceiling, hiding transparent drawers, hosts a forest of display elements – “ear,” “neck,” “hand,” – in smooth metal. They have a slight surrealist feel. They were designed by Charlotte herself. A coating of marmornino, intriguingly rugged, completes this new oasis with its sand-yellow tints. This installation carries the eye all the way to the window.
With a supreme material and a handful of straight lines, freshly thought out, Anne Holtrop, one of the most talented architects of the new generation, has signed off on a piece of work that can stand beside his other projects, such as the Trail House or Fort Vechten Museum. It has that same closeness to matter, that “material gesture” favoured by this architect, whose art is concentrated in the process of working the material and the unique gestures that it engenders. A gesture that is true.
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