In a city of possibilities, how to best spend a few hours in Paris? I recently accompanied my husband on a work trip in France and knew I would only have a free afternoon in Paris. On previous visits, I had checked the city’s greatest hits off my list and was looking for something bite-size and uncrowded but memorable.
Knowing of my interest in art and design, my photographer friend Marie Hennechart suggested the Musée Bourdelle and its new Rhodia cafe. It was a tip worth sharing.
The museum is devoted to the art of sculptor Antoine Bourdelle, a student of Rodin’s and a teacher of Giacometti’s. It’s set in his preserved Montparnasse studio enclave and has a new restaurant in what had been the apartment Bourdelle’s daughter, Rhodia, and her husband, Michel Dufet, the Art Deco interior designer, built for themselves in the late 1940s.
Rhodia and Michel together created the museum and were dedicated to preserving her father’s work. The designers of the café, in turn, kept many of the apartment’s details, including its wall of clerestory windows and yellow-and-white palette, while giving it a fresh new guise. Come see.
Museum photography by Stephen Drucker and Le Rhodia photography by Marielle Gaudry.
The Museum
The Café
The large oak tables have ceramic bases made by Cyril Dennery and are surrounded by 1950s Finnish designer Olavi Hänninen’s T-chairs. The Zen saucer lights are the work of Céline Wright whose studio is on the Île Saint Louis.
Musée Bourdelle and Le Rhodia are at 18 Rue Antoine Bourdelle in the 15th arrondissement.
Explore the Remodelista design travel archive for more of our Paris picks, including:
- Dersou, a Japanese Restaurant with Layers of History
- Modigliani Slept Here: A Hotel and Artists’ Atelier with Ideas to Steal
- La Blouse de Lyon, Purveyors of Traditional French Workwear
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