Freeze Frame

A closer look at the hottest solutions from October

Staff -- Interior Design, 10/1/2003 12:00:00 AM

Art with staying power

Determined to give an "absolutely distinct personality" to Paris hotel Le A, says designer Frédéric Méchiche, he commissioned artist Fabrice Hybert to create dozens of works for public spaces and guest rooms. "I often begin a piece with words that a specific place conjures up," explains the artist. Among those that came to mind when he thought "luxury hotel" were labyrinth, dreams, and anchor. "A hotel is a moment during a voyage when you provisionally drop anchor," he explains, citing the lobby's oil and charcoal collage L'Ancre de Corail, or The Coral Anchor. Each of the 26 themed guest rooms feature two original Hybert compositions, whether the strange vaselike figures of Entregent or the masks of Incognito. "A Is for Astounding," page 184. —I.P.

Color by numbers

Color always fascinates Mansilla + Tuñón Arquitectos. "It's something rarely mastered in contemporary architecture," says Ainoa Prats, who helped complete the Biblioteca Regional de Madrid Joaquín Leguina. To distinguish six identical stories of a depository for municipal documents, the firm used a different hue for each level. Color plays a purely aesthetic role elsewhere in the complex. Painted in three different reds, the new delivery and repair facility's cross beams give a nod to the brick of the old brewery buildings standing on the site. Public lockers in the library lobby and cabinetry in an archive office feature doors of vibrant enameled glass. The material exhibits such beautiful colors that the architects are currently using it for the polychromatic facade of another project, the Centro Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León. "Store of Knowledge," page 196. —I.P.