Photography Courtesy of:
Mandarin Oriental / George Apostolidis

Situated at the heart of Paris’s fashionable Rue St Honoré, the Mandarin Hotel is a few minutes’ walk from the elegant Tuileries gardens with the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay. Originally a government ministry building built in the classical vernacular and carefully restored by Wilmotte architects, the interior design was shared between SM Design and Jouin Manku agency. SM Design, a Paris-based agency designed the Lobby, Spa and Guest suites. With Jouin Manku an internationally acclaimed agency, also Paris based taking on Camilia the All Day Dining restaurant, Bar 8 the Hotel Bar and the Sur le Mesure Gourmet restaurant.

dpa Lighting design were responsible for the lighting design of all front-of-house areas, the courtyard, guest suites and the façade. Working closely with all 3 different designers Wilmotte, Jouin Manku and SM Design, dpa had to address all the different design styles whilst maintaining a coherent lighting strategy throughout the hotel, to allow a natural flow between the more traditional Paris apartment aesthetic of SM Design and the innovative and contemporary spaces of Jouin Manku. The AJM spaces required an exacting attention to detail with great care taken to conceal and integrate the lighting to the sculptural interiors. Where used, even the downlights were concealed in a custom plaster cone to hide the luminaire from view and a custom snoot arrangement was used to ensure there was no visible brightness on the ceiling, further concealing the location of the light source.

Client and Operator: Mandarin Oriental Hotels
Project Manager: ACPH
Architect: Wilmotte
Interior Designer: SM Design and Jouin Manku Agency
Landscape Designer: Agence Neveux-Rouyer
M&E Consultant: Coteba