The project consisted in creating a heritage building that would regenerate the image of Guerlain, the sleeping beauty of the perfume world. The program was to create three commercial floors in a building that was not built for that purpose: a tiny historical store on the Champs Élysées, on the mezzanine floor an administrative platform and on the second floor a magnificently aging Spa created by Jean-Michel Franck at the dawn of the Second World War. All protected by the Ministry of Culture for the benefit of a superb ignorance.
The association with André Putnam was an obligatory step in the course of the project, allowing the interior architect to work on the purely commercial part and some of the Spa’s furniture. As usual, the length of the construction site and the budget were also an important part of the project.
Major structural work allowed light to enter and real volumes to be created; each decorative element being protected, it was necessary to show know-how and culture to create, there, a staircase, there to restore it or to make it turn differently, here to take a period woodwork and to move it to the millimeter of 30 meters in the building, without forgetting to restore, by hiding the modern technique, works registered with the heritage.