A Movie-inspired Apartment in Paris by After Bach.

In the 1976 Dustin Hoffman starrer, Marathon Man, Paris’ Avenue Montaigne makes an accidental cameo, serving as the backdrop in one fight scene. If you were to visit today, chances are, you’d see no fight, nor any cameras rolling (unless you count your phone, which, given the street’s sheer beauty, you might feel compelled to keep on). Instead, you would find rows and rows of upscale boutiques that present the ultimate picture of high fashion (think stores like Louis Vuitton, Dior, Chanel, Fendi, Ralph Lauren, Valentino and Yves Saint Lauren, besides jewellers like Bulgari and hotels like the Plaza Athénée).

And while you might think the street’s Hollywood afterglow is long gone, its cinematic charm continues to live on in the most unassuming of places, as in the case of one particular duplex apartment designed by Francesco Balzano and Jessica Berguig of After Bach.

Rue Du Bac Apartment in Paris by Rodolphe Parente.

For an apartment situated on Paris’ historic Rue Du Bac, Rodolphe Parente’s kaleidoscopic interior remodel could have you mistaking it for a gallery. Neither loud nor muted, the home features outré pieces that are both bizarre and beautiful.

Presenting like a 1950s West Hollywood home, the apartment draws references from the 2001 David Lynch neo-noir film, Mulholland Drive. The walls wear French oak panels and natural plant fibres characterise the furnishings and textiles. In the main bathroom, meanwhile, a bathtub sculpted from a block of fine beige stone serves as the tour de force.

The home’s clean, precise lines dovetail nicely with furniture by Jacques Adnet and George Nakashima, ceramics by Floris Wubben, and artworks by a number of contemporary artists and designers. Remarkably, the movie-like interior is wholly matched by movie-like views, with the terrace boasting spectacular vistas of the city and the Eiffel Tower.

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For Francesco and Jessica, the project is special in more ways than one. Not only is it their first residential collaboration, but it’s also their first project as an official studio (they previously collaborated on a new flagship concept for chocolate maker DAMYEL in Paris, which won the ADC Award 2020 for Best Shop in the Interiors category).

With its movie-like sheen and meditative air, this particular home is evidence (again) of the pair’s quiet, combined signature.

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[Images courtesy of After Bach.  Photography by Annick Vernimmen.]