Step Inside Mathieu Lehanneur’s New Paris Studio

Let’s take a look inside French designer Mathieu Lehanneur’s new Paris HQ. As the creator of the Paris 2024 Olympic torch, Mathieu is an icon of style in this generation.

Throughout his career, Mathieu Lehanneur has exemplified what is means to be multidisciplinary. He has crafted interactive street furniture for the city of Paris, envisioned futuristic electric vehicles for Renault, crafted marble tables for Carpenters Workshop Gallery, and spearheaded design endeavours at Huawei. He is the type of designer who effortlessly adapts his creative sensibility to various projects, effortlessly generating innovative concepts across vastly different industries.

His most recent noteworthy assignment stemmed from the realm of sports, as the International Olympic Committee selected his torch design for the Paris 2024 Games.

With the unveiling of his latest endeavour, a gleaming new HQ in Paris’ Ivry-sur-Seine neighbourhood, Lehanneur plans to narrow his focus and build up his practice as an independent brand in its own right. He and his team moved into the former electricity station – an 800 sq m, two-storey, gabled roof brick building that more closely resembles a schoolhouse than an industrial plant – nearly a year ago after a months-long hunt for a more spacious headquarters.

Accessible only via a small alleyway, the building sits sandwiched between high-rises and a football pitch that offers a dynamic backdrop (and boisterous soundtrack). ‘We’re like a small island,’ says Lehanneur, sitting at his oblong, black-stained desk, which serves as a plinth for piles of sketches, samples and various ephemera.

When searching for a new space, the iconic designer wanted somewhere that would foster the firm’s new way of working. After a fruitful career spent collaborating with blue chip companies and high-end galleries, Lehanneur had decided it was time to break course. Although he loved the challenges associated with client work, the clash of priorities between stakeholders often left him dissatisfied.

The solution? To bring it all in-house. His studio would take on fewer new commissions, instead developing and producing everything themselves. ‘When you work with a brand or gallery, you have no contact with the final client, who will eventually live with the object,’ he says. ‘And I need that connection because I learn so much from it.’

Just outside Lehanneur’s new office door sits a dedicated gallery space, which hosts several of his recent furniture projects, while down a short set of stairs is a material library and workspace. There, he can work with clients to customise commissions, or simply just bounce around new ideas with the team.

At the moment, they are playing with a new lighting system, which pairs a frosted blown-glass bulb with a rod wrapped in sea green decorative passementerie cord. Not for a particular project, Lehanneur says, just to experiment. ‘Being autonomous gives you the freedom to go where you want with your business,’ he muses. ‘You have to be ready for failures, but you also have to be ready for potential success.’

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