“When you decorate one wall, you decorate the others”, decorating ideas to transform your interior

After the big comeback of wallpaper, it’s up to frescoes, bas-reliefs and other reinvented stuccos to make the most beautiful walls. Decorative techniques that are making a comeback. As always, before moving into private residences, it was in public places, restaurants and hotels that the comeback took shape.

The appetite for wall frescoes was thus awakened by Florence Bamberger, who painted the walls and ceilings of Fogo, in the 17th century.^e district, in Paris. She poetically reinterprets “Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe”, by Édouard Manet. Another restaurant, another atmosphere. At Lucas Carton, a legendary restaurant in the capital, on Place de la Madeleine, we admire a painted decor with more classic references, created by Blundell & Therrien.

Célina Blundell and Christophe Therrien, who founded their workshop in 2013, renovate decors within institutions, such as the Palace of Versailles, and also create custom works all over the world. Using ancient techniques, using pigments, mineral paints and natural glues, the duo combines contemporary writing and old-world charm.

Decor and architecture

The charm of the old also floats on the work of Willie Morlon, winner in June of the Design Parade Toulon Van Cleef & Arpels grand prize. For this competition, this young graduate of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels presented Placo Studiolointerpretation of a Mediterranean palace whose walls were made of Placoplatre marquetry. A material that he knew how to sublimate to create a room where there was an elegant atmosphere made of pastel pink, green, blue…

“My initial idea was to question mass construction and its future, but, ultimately, the gesture took over, and the manifesto softened in the face of aesthetics,” explains this enthusiast of ornamentation. In a recent interview, he declared: “Wall decorations are once again causing craze. There is a renewed interest in know-how. And then, having a work designed specifically for the space, integrated into the architecture, that brings a very strong emotional value.”

No wonder, therefore, that since obtaining his prize, the proposals have been piling up and that he is considering using his technique with metal, fabric, glass… And, in this area, the materials there is no shortage of opportunities to reappropriate or divert.

Heritage and transmission

L’Atelier Prométée, an expert in art castings, is also one of the major specialists in earthenware tile decorations. The workshop is capable of copying everything, like inventing frescoes or motifs in a very heritage spirit. Each decor is made by hand, as in this particular house in Pebble Beach, in the United States, where the walls of the dining room are entirely covered with an earthenware landscape evoking 18th century California.^e century. Olivia Cognet also chose ceramics. But his approach is more unique. She creates works in situ that evoke large volume puzzles. Installed in the former workshop of Roger Capron, in Vallauris, in the Alpes-Maritimes, it does not hide its references to Picasso, Matisse or Cocteau…

Artists who, all, at some point in their career, have made the wall a creative medium. It is, moreover, to Jean Cocteau that we owe the nickname of Villa Tatoée given to the Villa Santo Sospir, in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. Indeed, the artist, invited by the owner Francine Weisweiller in 1950, walked in circles there during his stay: “Idleness tires me, I dry out.” The walls are white and empty. He then asks Francine if he can draw the head of Apollo in charcoal, above the fireplace in the living room. Then, taken by a devouring creativity, Cocteau will “tattoo” all the walls and ceilings of the house with frescoes in very soft tones. For years, he will return to Villa Santo Sospir to complete his work, undoubtedly his most personal.

Volumes et surfaces

Luc Ghanem, alias Lookas, also gives a new personality to the walls. But with a spatula… Lookas, who started out as a facade designer, discovered a passion for creation and lime mortar. It is with this natural material that he made delicate trees emerge from one of the walls of Stéphanie Coutas’ Parisian gallery, the silhouette of which evokes olive trees. From this grove escapes a magic which has captivated the interior designer: this passionate about know-how and artistic crafts has grown these wall sculptures in many residences.

In the wake of these tailor-made creations, more accessible alternatives are emerging. Architect Pierre Gonalons, for the CarréSol brand, repurposes parquet to work it like luxury paneling. Its Médaillon collection, which combines oak slats and marble inlays, brings a touch that is both strange and sophisticated. The terracotta tile also leaves the floor to be displayed on the wall with the collaboration of the Italian manufacturer Fornace Brioni and the Norwegian architectural agency Snøhetta: their Void capsule plays on the hollows and curves of elements in 3D to capture light and shadow in unexpected ways.

Cork, until now confined to simple insulating panels, is showing itself: La Parqueterie Nouvelle twists it in embossed, graphic, hypnotic versions… Faced with these avalanches of wall decorations, each more surprising and attractive than the other, it is better keep in mind the phrase of Matisse, which opens many horizons: “When you decorate one wall, you decorate the others.”