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MEETING…JEAN PHILIPPE NUEL


JEAN-PHILIPPE NUEL


WORDS: Natasha Edwards PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPH: Chrtistophe Brachet


I meet Jean-Philippe Nuel over a coffee in the TGV on the way to the Radisson Blu Nantes, where the 19th-century law courts are about to be unveiled as a four-star hotel.


It’s the first of a series of spectacular hotels he has designed in historic buildings, as the French state sells off its jewels. In addition to the Palais de Justice in Nantes, there are historic hospitals in Marseille and Lyon, and a prison in Avignon, not to mention an abandoned Art Deco swimming pool and an electricity substation in Paris, and Nuel has become France’s de facto expert in building conversions. “I’ve a style that is mostly contemporary, so it’s quite amusing to find myself in all these historic places, but I adore doing this mix, because I adore making places that resemble us, not just us French but us Europeans. It is to say that we have a heritage, a history and a culture, but to be contemporary in these places is to continue to write their history. To have a history and live in the 21st century is not antinomic.” Now at the head of a 30-strong design


team, Nuel originally trained as an architect at


the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, becoming a specialist in hotels, as he puts it, “almost by accident” when he renovated Le Clos Médicis, a small Paris hotel in an 18th century building near St-Germain-des-Prés: “I was there as architect for the rehabilitation and I immediately asked the owner if I could do both the architecture and the interior decoration. As the result of that project, I was immediately proposed another hotel and then another.” From Hotel Le Lavoisier, Hôtel Duo and Le Général, among others, in Paris, he has gone on to work for Hilton, Club Med, Sofitel and most of the leading international hotel groups. “More and more chains are interested in developing specific identities,” says Nuel “As an interior designer, one has to know if one’s personal style will gel with that identity or not. If I were asked to do a hyper-classic hotel with period-style furniture, I couldn’t do it because it’s


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