Every year, French contemporary art mecca Villa Noailles hosts Design Parade, with coinciding celebrations in Toulon for interior architecture and in Hyères for design. Founded and directed by Jean-Pierre Blanc and chaired by Pascale Mussard, the festival has become a preeminent voice of new contemporary creation.
That’s primarily thanks to the annual Design Competition, which this year featured juries helmed by Aline Asmar d’Amman and Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance. Late last month, the public learned of the prize winners among the spotlighted young talents. Read on to learn more about the noteworthy recipients and their inspired works.
Clément Rosenberg
Recipient of the Grand Prix Design Parade Toulon Van Cleef & Arpels Award
A graduate of the DSAA Mode et Environnement department at Duperré and ENSCI-Les Ateliers, Rosenberg chose the cicada, the Mediterranean motif, for his installation dubbed Chambre Tapissée Pour Cigale en Hiver, which translates to “carpeted room for cicada in winter.” The cicada spends most of its life buried and protected before spreading its wings and filling the southern landscapes with its powerful song. He associates the insect with an imaginary coat of arms of the Mediterranean, which would unite Occitanie and Provence under symbolic colors—indigo, terracotta, yellow—that he imbues in tapestries, draperies, and hangings. The result is a supple, delicate medieval bedroom in a sensitive and referential understanding of southern France.
Mathieu Tran Nguyen
Recipient of the Jury Special Mention
Wicker, raffia, raw silk, and woven bamboo are the materials used throughout L’Oseraie, Tran Nguyen’s creation that pays homage to basketry and the wickerwork typical of the Provençal imagination. The architect, who has worked in the offices of Philippe Starck and Rodolphe Parente, gathered insights from the rigorous lines of Jean-Michel Frank and the hotel designed by Marie-Laure and Charles de Noailles in Paris, bringing them to fruition as wall treatments, furniture, and lighting using plant fibers. A refined inspiration and a geometric composition, brilliantly executed.
