PROFILES

Wood, context and functionality were recurrent words when we last interviewed Vincent Coste. Words that without summing him up entirely, nonetheless defined some major facets of his work as an architect. Thirteen years have since passed. “You have to realise that an architect’s life is one of perpetual evolution, an ongoing transformation depending on project, experience and setting.” Hence the delicate question of a “signature”, habitually so important in his profession. “I’m not looking to be recognised for any specific formal expression, like some architects who tend to reproduce what they do.” Rather than playing safe through reassuring habit, Coste is a man prepared to take the risk – and risk it is – of reinventing himself, or more accurately, proposing the most relevant answer at a particular time and place. “Each project should lead the architect to think differently.” A mindset that has similarly led him to open an interior design department, enabling him to work on restorations too, among other things. “We put a huge amount of thought into this field, striving each time to be a source of innovation.” One example is Tahiti Beach in Pampelonne, where as part of the renovation Coste suggested a novel means of providing shade by hanging parasols so as to create a canopy. Two years previously, with Jérôme Garzon and Claire Leina, he decorated the walls and floor of the Koï restaurant in Aix-en-Provence with huge monochrome “tattoos“. Five years ago he decided to take his thinking further by designing furnishing items too so as to create coherence with his architecture. This led him to win the 2015 Palace of Versailles competition for reinterpreting a Louis XVI chest of drawers, for which he used a 3D printer.

Par Alexandre Benoist

Photo Jean-Michel Sordello