October 2016

Architecture 54

  • Tandem glamour
 
 architecture54 carolinechevalier
Le tandem Bartoli-Lombardi aussi séduisant que leurs créations.

'Chateaubriand says it all: Make beauty stay, youth last and the heart never tire, and you will recreate Heaven."

 

Such was Pascale Bartoli's comment on a recent Facebook post illustrated by a sublime picture of water on water, a swimming pool against the Mediterranean Sea, with a blur of islands on the horizon. A visit to her architecture studio in central Marseille is called for! She and her partner Thierry Lombardi have been has been working there for ten years now. Contemporary art adorns the walls as they and their dream team work busily and enthusiastically to design fine architecture and interiors, such as the layout of the Rooftop at the Terrasses du Port and the industrial-style Réfectoire restaurant on the floor below. The studio adapts with equal ease to the urban style of a harbour-side development and more intimate settings like the Albertine, Gérald Passédat's latest restaurant. But they also enjoy a job with a geographical challenge. The villa Sentinelles and other beautiful origami style homes cling to steep hillsides, shuttered concrete and bare stone walls confronting the landscape around. Recently the Hôtel du Castellet commissioned them to create a spa and fitness space in Barcelona stone, light oak and slate. Their work is rooted in the region, its heritage and its landscapes, never forgetting their Mediterranean culture. And always combining functional efficiency with the fine taste for sensitive, elegant aesthetics that is their trademark. COTE Magazine knows the agency well, having several times awarded it a Cotissimo prize, including one for the Driving Centre at the Paul Ricard racetrack.

 

www.pascale.bartoli.com