- / Design e Architettura
L’uso dei materiali e il catalogo per Angelo Mangiarotti: la forma non si impone ma si ottiene per incastri, gravità e resistenza. Il libro Framing the Project (Corraini) ne ripercorre il gesto
ISSUE NO. 31
Hidden in the 9ᵗʰ arrondissement, the Cité Bergère is an L-shaped lane only three metres wide and 180 metres long, pierced in 1825 as the private passage Montmartre. Two wrought-iron gates—one at 6 rue du Faubourg-Montmartre, the other at 23 rue Bergère—still mark the thresholds of a world apart: gas lamps, Art-Nouveau mascarons and rows of marquise-topped façades evoke the Paris of the early railway age, when boarding houses sprouted wherever the new boulevards lured travellers. The entire street, now partially listed as monument historique, has remained almost unchanged for two centuries.
From the very beginning the passage specialised in hôtels garnis—cheap, flexible rooms rented avec garniture (furnished and with breakfast). By the 1830s it was already known as a “pâté d’hôtels”, a dense cake of lodgings where Frédéric Chopin, Balzac’s publisher and scores of travelling actors found shelter between rehearsals on the nearby Grands Boulevards. The Belle Époque added cast-iron balconies and colour-stained glass awnings; World Fairs and railway lines funnelled ever more visitors, turning the cité into a micro-district of hospitality long before the word “boutique hotel” was coined.
Today a dozen small hotels still line the cobbles, but the tone has shifted from pension de famille to craft-driven hideaway. At Nº 14 the ateliers of the silk-accessories brand Cinabre share four floors with Les Suites Cinabre, a two-suite retreat that re-interprets the cité’s tradition of intimate lodging for the slow-luxury traveller. Its founder, Alexandre Chapellier, calls it “a club for people who care about how things are made”—an ethos that speaks directly to the passage’s DNA of craftsmanship and discretion.
Chapellier has restored a seventeenth-century shell without surrendering to nostalgia. Guests step through a porte secrète beside the concierge desk, climb a corkscrew staircase and cross the Cinabre workshop—spools of silk, dressmakers’ shears, the smell of hot iron—before reaching the suites. The journey itself is a manifesto: luxury as a chain of human gestures rather than a sequence of status symbols.
«The idea was to do something that could last» Chapellier explains. «We did not want to create something Instagrammable, very fashionable, but that you would have to change completely in two years.” This principle shaped not only the fashion brand Cinabre but also the Suites. The philosophy insists on durability — materials, furnishings, and design intended to remain relevant across generations.
The building’s shell remained intact, but the interiors demanded complete renovation: «Outside the building was still beautiful, but inside it was in really bad shape». New floors, windows, and insulation were installed, always weighing modern needs against historical preservation: «We chose to insulate our suites from the inside. It is very costly because you lose surface, but it preserves the façade and respects the original architecture.”
Chapellier sees this investment in insulation as a fundamental part of the Suites’ environmental ethos: «It is a huge investment, but we wanted to do it for the next generations. If someone in a hundred years will look at these windows, they will see real, super heavy wooden windows done in Normandy, not cheap, mass-produced frames.”
Beyond structural choices, Chapellier believes the act of maintaining and adapting existing buildings is itself a form of sustainability: «When you preserve something instead of destroying and rebuilding it, you are already making a strong ecological statement. It is about respecting what came before and minimizing waste.”
Sustainability at Les Suites Cinabre extends beyond construction choices: «We work with local artisans as much as possible. About ninety percent of our furniture are vintage pieces.” Partnering with independent French craftspeople, including local fabric makers and furniture artisans, supports a network of small-scale ethical production.
Refurbished vintage items replace mass-produced imports. Chapellier criticizes trends such as electric bikes – «They will be in the garbage in six months» – contrasting them with the enduring value of repurposed bicycles and antiques: Sometimes it is good to find the right balance between vintage and new.”
This philosophy extends into day-to-day hotel operations. Shampoo and body products are refillable. Cleaning policies encourage towel reuse. Coffee is sourced from Café Joyeux, a French social enterprise supporting workers with disabilities. “The idea for us was more to work on the sourcing. It is not just about using less, but choosing better.”
He emphasizes the importance of durability in consumption: “Today, everyone talks about sustainability, but we are overproducing new things pretending to be ecological. True sustainability is buying less and keeping it longer.”
Chapellier also reflects on the paradox of contemporary ecological efforts: “We say we want to be sustainable, but then we buy new ecological bikes that break after a year. It is a kind of madness. It would be more ecological to repair an old bike than to keep producing fragile new ones.”
Within Les Suites Cinabre diversity is not a matter of policy but of environment: “The idea was to design a space where people can feel like they are in my home”. The suites are filled with their founder’s personal objects: family photographs, vintage furniture, and a curated library of rare books. Guests, whether staying for a night or a week, are invited into a personal, inclusive space that resists the homogenized aesthetics of mass-market luxury hotels.
Chapellier highlights the deliberate avoidance of standardization: “I wanted fabrics all over the suites” he says, describing how velvet and vintage textiles are layered throughout the rooms. Instead of generic artworks and ubiquitous coffee table books, guests encounter personal collections that tell specific stories.
He extends this individualization to fashion as well: “All the major luxury brands do mass production. For me, that’s not luxury. Real luxury is finding a piece that belongs only to you.”
The structure of Les Suites Cinabre encourages a different model of luxury — one based on community and craft rather than exclusivity and display: “We are building this kind of Cinabre club. Soon, a private bar accessible only to guests and regular customers will open on the ground floor, reinforcing the sense of an intimate, ongoing community.”
Privacy and intimacy replace spectacle: “A unique and intimate experience, very calm, relaxing — for me this is the future of hospitality.” Guests can request a personal tour of the Suites with Chapellier himself, sharing coffee and stories behind each piece of furniture and book. “Today luxury is about time, privacy, it is about feeling truly at home.”
Chapellier believes that sustainable travel should prioritize quality over quantity: “It is better to travel less but better. Take your time, immerse yourself in the places you visit, respect where you are.”
Every material choice at Les Suites Cinabre reflects a philosophy of resistance to planned obsolescence. Windows were handmade in Normandy with traditional woodcraft. Heating was installed under floors to preserve space and improve energy efficiency, balancing preservation with comfort.
Bathrooms feature stainless steel installations custom-made by an artisan who typically supplies Paris’ three-star restaurants. Beds are provided by Hästens, a Swedish company making mattresses from horsehair and cotton since 1852: “They built each bed handmade from a time people were not talking about upcycling.”
Mosaic works, natural woods, and vintage textiles are combined with the aim to resist the ephemeral cycles of interior trends: “When you design something, you have to ask yourself: what could still be nice in twenty years, fifty years?” Les Suites Cinabre attempts to answer this question practically rather than conceptually: “I want someone arriving here in fifty years to say: yes, it still works. This is true design.”
“Ours is a small hotel, so we can be very precise on how we work”. Staff work across roles, reducing idle labor hours. Independent contractors are preferred over large service companies to ensure fair pay and a more responsible relationship between work and compensation.
Chapellier stresses that luxury should not create waste and sustainability is about lasting over time: “If you buy a luxury product and in two years you throw it away, it is not luxury. It is a failure. To be sustainable means to create something that will not be destroyed immediately. We do not want guests to arrive, take a few pictures for Instagram, and move on. We want them to live in the suites, to experience them”.
Following this same logic, Cinabre now offers a “hospital” for garments: “We launched a service where you can bring your old Cinabre ties or shirts, and we will repair or update them. It is not about selling more, it is about extending the life of what already exists.”
Les Suites Cinabre’s proposal wants to stand against the massification of luxury and the environmental cost of relentless newness — a sustainable luxury model rooted in local materials, individual expression, and communal intimacy: “When you create a product, you have to ask yourself: will people destroy it, or will they keep it and pass it to the next generations?.”
In a city dense with history and commerce, Les Suites Cinabre aims at offering an alternative path forward — one that is crafted, ethical, and enduring: “Sustainability in hospitality is not just about certifications or eco-labels. It is about small, daily choices. It is about loving what you create enough that others will want to preserve it.”
In a world overwhelmed by impermanence, Les Suites Cinabre quietly argues for a slower, more deliberate form of luxury — one where craft, memory, and community matter more than spectacle: “The real luxury is time. Time to build well. Time to enjoy properly. Time to share authentically.”
ISSUE NO. 31
Lampoon is a cultural magazine.
Culture today means sustainability – in its honest meaning.
Culture has always been about human respect, tolerance. It’s not only about accepting human diversity but it’s about searching for the beauty of every human peculiarity.
Inclusion is the first value that defines art. Culture today means one thing only: to be part of a community, to think as a community.
Reading Lampoon, you see that these themes are smoothly aligned. A good part of the articles’ content discusses practices to restore our environment and stories about understanding the others.
Reading Lampoon, you find a dialogue between science and creativity. From sharp and edgy photo sessions to fashion, architecture, technology – the commitment is dedicated to a future that is all about us – together.
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