Architecture: why is Maxime Bousquet the name to remember?

It's the day of the inauguration of PAD at the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris, the high mass of design and interior decoration where the most prestigious names in the profession meet. The architect Maxime Bousquet has just been there. We found him right after to talk about his work in a hotel not far from his office, a stone's throw from Porte Saint-Martin. His name has been in our directory of young talents to meet for several months. The latter is on the rise, even in the United States since it has just been published in the New York Times' T Magazine, which lists what is most exciting in the world of current creation. Freshly graduated from the École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Versailles, he started with his first job at Kenzo . Carol Lim and Umberto Leon (founders of the Opening Ceremony concept store, between New York and Tokyo) have just been appointed artistic directors of the brand. “As soon as they arrive, they create an image and architecture center in order to rethink the visual identity of the brand and its retail concept. I joined the team and stayed for a little over three years. It’s an ultra-creative period, I learn another scale, a sense of detail, the ephemeral.” With fashion, he discovers scenography, movement, light, narration... fashion shows train his eye and teach him to tell stories. 

Life scenario

Like a metaphor, he describes a habitat as a piece of clothing. “The perfect garment only really takes on meaning once it is worn. Designers often have women in mind, in fact. An interior is the same thing. No matter how much you imagine the most beautiful interior there is, if it is not embodied, it will never completely work. My clients become muses for whom I imagine and suggest references, attitudes, feelings. I work on their life scenario in space so that the projects are truly inhabited settings.” This scenario story that Maxime Bousquet tells us about is specific to cinema, one of its sources of inspiration. He cites Almodovar, Proust's madeleine linked to his Spanish mother, Luca Guadanino whose settings he always finds just right, without forgetting Dune by David Lynch whose font he uses for the identity of his studio, like a wink in the eye . After this experience in fashion, he flew to Joseph Dirand, architect, before joining the Studio KO team. “There, I learned about excellence, the precision of volumes, the richness of materials and artistic craftsmanship… it’s ultra-luxury.” Two very different approaches but which he finds complementary. It is forming. A roof garden At 30, Maxime Bousquet decided to set up his agency. It's launching the following year, it's time. “My first project is an attic duplex in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, with a very beautiful terrace, a luxury in the neighborhood.” He has not yet signed any hospitality projects even if the subject attracts him. He tells us that his creations are often pied-à-terre like hotel suites, it's a way for him to immerse himself in this universe. “Everything must be precisely thought out, perfect, available. It’s like you’re in a hotel except you’re at home.” When we talk to him about DNA, he reorients us: “I don't necessarily recognize myself in the idea of ​​identity language, which is too marked or repetitive. But there is of course a common thread, more sensitive, a way of doing and approaching projects and creating an atmosphere. I obviously love carte blanche, when someone comes to me for a completely crazy place with impossible requests. Each of my projects begins with a narrative based on extensive iconographic research, like a book that details each atmosphere, point of view, materials, desires, attitudes. This work is the first support for the history of the project, then we start to draw. We come back to it often throughout the course.” His creations are sometimes inspired by the place and sometimes by the client. "There are no rules. There are clients who erase the place with their personality so it doesn't matter what it is, and sometimes the place is already to die for so we draw on its history, we reinvent it. I think one of the things my clients have in common is their strong personalities. They are full of desires, they want to dare and be challenged, pushed around sometimes.” And speaking of challenges, one of the projects he's currently working on is certainly one of the craziest we've ever entrusted to him. “These are very ambitious clients who, fortunately, dream very big with me. They bought the last two floors of a beautiful Parisian building, and quite quickly an obsession was born for this project with a house on the roofs and therefore with a garden... So we took off the roof of the building to creating it, this garden on the roof, with a view of all of Paris to die for, it’s incredible!”

Collections and curations

For Maxime Bousquet , it is often a question of obsessions. “I have my periods, phases of passion, I have been collecting lots of things for quite some time that I never give up, the circle is widening, and I keep everything with me. It depends on what I see, what I experience, the projects I work on. I'm interested in many things and I try to stay awake. At the moment I am in a big phase of contemporary painting. I find, for example, the work of Tim Breuer to die for, that of Issy Wood or Sequoia Scavullo stunning. I am also very sensitive to the work of Max Lamb and Sigve Knutson, I like their approach to design and material.” Maxime Bousquet likes to be entrusted with the purchase of works of art. “Either the clients already have a very large collection from which I draw what will suit the interior that I design for them by adding new signatures, or the collections are only just beginning and therefore the clients appeal all the more to my eye, to my taste. In any case, a collection is made to live, the works move, change…” He discovered his favourites in particular in the Parisian gallery Sans-Titre. “Their programming is fabulous. They have a real eye, an ultra-coherent vision in the choices of their artists.” Maxime Bousquet is a fascinating architect. He handles narration brilliantly, both that of his story and that of the projects he works on. A fervent lover of painting, literature and cinema, this collector at heart is an esthete of interior decoration, an outstanding curator of the new generation. And his talent is only blossoming...