Carte blanche

Granted free rein to decorate a 19th-century residence for her parents, architect and designer Marine Bonnefoy took a few liberties to effect a beautiful result.

After graduating from architecture school, Marine Bonnefoy decided it was time to get her hands dirty. “My studies were very intellectually oriented and had no link to actual construction,” she says. “By the end of them, I hadn’t even been taught what holds up a wall.” To find out, she spent a year working for a building firm. “I demolished facades with a pneumatic drill, learnt plastering, wiring and plumbing, and made concrete. It was fantastic!” she says.

That kind of pragmatic approach has certainly stood her in good stead. Still in her early 30s, she has three times been named on the French edition of Architectural Digest magazine’s list of the top 100 decorators in the world. She recently completed a 95sqm apartment in Paris’s elegant Palais Royal area, is currently building houses from the ground up in both Marseille and Bordeaux, and is about to embark upon the renovation and extension of a seaside property in Brittany. With each project, her approach is the same. “I don’t do anything straight off,” she says. “I go about my daily life and it matures in my mind. I think about it when I’m cooking, walking and shopping, and only start drawing about three weeks later.”