In the heart of Paris, an unexpected courtyard leads to the new headquarters of Van Cleef & Arpels, the legendary house of high-end jewellery, born right in the French capital. The design of all the communal spaces in a building that dates back to the 17th century – reception, library, collective work spaces and garden – was entrusted to the unmistakable creativity of Constance Guisset.
In an open-planned space filled with natural light that enters through a glass roof, the design proposes a kind of journey through the building starting from the street. Responding to the demands of a place that is always filled with movement, where meetings are held by the Van Cleef & Arpels team, suppliers are received and events and parties held, what was needed was a modular system of seating that could function as a whole or separately as well as being very easy to move. Subscribing to the belief that seating systems are very important for establishing use of space as each is able to influence the tone of the room, the decision was made to use the Waves modular system by LaCividina, designed by Guisset in 2018. Inspired by the sea and the soft and gentle waves that ripple over the surface of the water, Waves is a collection of poufs with organic shapes that take on an artistic character, in which landscapes and flowers enter the canvas with sinuous lines and rich colours.
The singular element in this system is above all composition: over sixty modules and twenty variations with different forms and volumes, also with a small backrest, can be placed together as desired to furnish waiting areas or display spaces in an elegant and unusual way. Each element has a magnet concealed in the structure that enables the poufs to be connected together. In the Paris headquarters of Van Cleef & Arpels, Waves expresses all its creative potential, combining for the first time on the same seat three different exquisite fabrics.
