Willowbrook Park
Irwin Weiner ASID - I'm here today to praise French designer Jacques Garcia. His hotel and restaurant interiors made him famous, notably the 10-year-old-yet-still-cutting-edge Hotel Costes in Paris (top photo); Parisians buzzed about the Garcia decor, which they felt was the most amazing injection of personality into a public space. And haven't I been using my Design2Share bully pulpit over the years to decry sterile "hotel style" for homes as being too devoid of personality? Mr. Garcia's spaces are major exceptions to that rule, and he has done much to further an "international style" into public spaces (see his Hotel La Mamounia in Marrakech in the photo below), saying that there is no such thing as an individual national decor or design style since people are now truly world citizens. His opulence and eye for detail is unrivaled, and his current design projects are tending more to sleek, pure form and function.
Metropolitan Home
I enjoyed this video because it shows Garcia's personal home, a French mansion called Chateau du Champs de Bataille that he turned into an opulent living space once again, complete with an astounding collection of objects that had been taken away from France in the aftermath of their great Revolution, including an 18th Century sterling silver bathtub. Sign me up as a house guest!
