On any given evening in their modernist white house-cum-showroom in Paris’s 12th Arrondissement, Alice and Benjamin Paulin might be receiving a tour group from an American museum, 100 artists and creative leaders for cocktails, or a visiting musician who descends to their bespoke basement recording studio to lay down some tracks. The dynamic stewards of the legacy of Benjamin’s father, the visionary 20th-century designer and decorator Pierre Paulin, this nimble couple is devoted to sharing the inspiration that began in 2013, with the founding of their new company based on Pierre’s credo of finding comfort and poetry through functionality.
Born in 1927, Pierre dreamed of a career as a sculptor, but the dream was abruptly derailed by an arm injury. Instead, he began working in design in the 1950s. He went on to invent chairs such as the Groovy and the Tongue in the 60s, to reconceive the Denon wing of the Louvre, and, eventually, to redesign a suite of private rooms for President Georges Pompidou at the Élysée Palace in 1972, as well as the office of François Mitterrand, among other modernist civic, industrial, and installation projects. (The Élysée dining room and smoking room have recently been restored, and the smoking room will soon tour museums.)
