Artist Pierre Marie creates textile frescoes for the Galeries Lafayette Pavilion

The architect Franklin Azzi and the ornamentalist Pierre Marie have joined their talents for the roof pavilion of Galeries Lafayette. The minimal steel structure serves as a backdrop for a phantasmagorical wall hanging, for an exclusive dialogue between art and architecture.

For this place, open to 360° on the Parisian landscape, the architect has imagined an ultra-light steel structure, removable according to the needs and the seasons. It hosts the Tortuga restaurant, a name chosen by its chef Julien Sebbag in reference to a Caribbean island. A feat of engineering, this pavilion with its unprecedented construction, conceived as an abstraction, fades away to serve as a frame for the urban panorama on one hand, and on the other hand for its interior décor, conceived by Franklin Azzi as an immersive sensory experience.

In the tradition of decorative arts and the collaborations initiated by the Galleries, Franklin Azzi invited the ornamental artist Pierre Marie for a global artistic intervention in direct dialogue with the space. The artist has thus imagined six frescoes and different motifs that fully participate in the history of the place. This collaboration is part of the great tradition of the decorative arts and revives the spirit of innovation of the department stores born of the meeting of engineers, architects and artists of their time.

The architectural minimalism of Franklin Azzi's pavilion contrasts with the two monumental hangings by Pierre Marie. The artist-decorator deploys an opulent décor inspired by the underwater flora's abundance. The seaweed and coral of his textile frescoes are patterns, colours and materials that marry the construction's purity in a play between opacity and transparency.