Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture | Les Grands Verres

Info + Press

The new restaurant « Les Grands Verres » of the Palais de Tokyo transforms the culinary experience into an immersive one. The architecture becomes emotion, matter, it dialogues with the architecture of the Palais and emerges from its traces, from its past, its existing textures. The project transforms poetically the raw spaces of the Palais and celebrates the unfinished. The concept of the «Grands Verres»? An experience developed around the fresh-from-the- market, authentic dishes of a natural cuisine. The design is set to be sustainable and makes guests feel good, allowing them to travel with all of their senses through a heightened and surprising sense of materiality. Through three chromatic intensities, the architecture of the restaurant proposes a gradation of experiences, ranging from the most porous to the most intimate area.

For the “Palais of the hand,” Lina Ghotmeh has designed the entire experience from architecture to furnishings, made of raw and recycled materials: monumental bar, chairs, armchair and lighting. The lighting, in the form of glass droplets encircled by black metal, varies in height, density, and intensity to underscore the unity of the three spaces while simultaneously singularizing each one.

In fact, the space unfolds in 3 acts.

Act one: The Palais’ Agora

At the entrance, the first space, named “Ready-made,” has a stronger link with the Palais de Tokyo and its artistic life. It is a coffeehouse–theater, an agora type of space where dining becomes a performance. Here you can eat and drink to the rhythm of the installations and more informally, either seated, standing, or in between, above, on chairs, banquettes or bleachers which allow to discover the spaces of the Palais in a different light.

Act two: Back to earth

Central space of the Grand Verres, place of conviviality. The master piece of the place: an 18 meters long bar underlines the central area of the restaurant, made entirely of rammed earth, a 100% natural and sustainable material. This bar is a genuine “magnet for people.” We see here an interactive bar, a flow of constant movement, between guests, cocktail addicts and chefs. Thanks to its lively active and sensual materiality, it is the beating heart of the crowds. Lina Ghotmeh draws in this place a natural, deeply humanistic atmosphere, reminding us that earth is the origin of all food.

Act three: Dining at the edge of a work of art

Dubbed the “Glass House”, the final act consists of: the restaurant’s most intimate space, which can be privatized for a deep culinary experience: the intention is to gather around a table whose curvilinear forms, inspired by nature, evoking a reflective drop of water.

A perfect spectacle for the guests of a special evening.

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