Philippe Starck

Philippe Starck, designer of the build­ing, has lent his inim­itable image to the space.
“Le Royal Mon­ceau — Raf­fles Paris has noth­ing to do with archi­tec­ture or dec­o­ra­tion, it is an explo­ration. It’s an explo­ration of what the French spirit is, of what it should be, and what it could be. Our qual­i­ties, our flaws, this poetry, this roman­ti­cism, this reflec­tion, this crit­i­cal spirit taken to an even higher level, which either kills or con­firms. It’s the cre­ation of an inter­nal men­tal space within the phys­i­cal sur­round­ings and even replac­ing dec­o­ra­tion ; the men­tal in place of the esthetic, lit­er­a­ture in place of style. The cre­ation of a total space, of a life, a mem­ory, of a pas­sage as if its mol­e­cules had been set in motion by music, as if the air had become pal­pa­ble with the scent of per­fume, as if a room could be under­stood by evok­ing the exquis­ite soul of one who had lived there, and had left behind mem­o­ries, gifts, and memoires”.

Philippe Starck