Jean-Michel Wilmotte: 3 recent and eclectic projects!

L’architecte, designer et urbaniste Jean-Michel Wilmotte collabores sur trois nouveaux projets avec Lelièvre, Margraf et Delisle. Entre sortie de collection textile, vasques en pierre naturelle et luminaire, l’architecte, qui signe par ailleurs la scénographie des expositions au Rijksmuseum et sort un nouveau livre chez Skira, s’offre un début d’année des plus dynamiques !

An Italian company that has specialized in working with natural stone since 1906, Margraf combines the search for exclusive materials with high-level know-how. For this collection, presented last June at the Milan furniture show, the architect imagined two lines of washbasins – Gradina and Herma – that would highlight the fior di pesco marble, of which the company owns a quarry. Fascinated by marble for more than 30 years, Jean-Michel Wilmotte’s interest in this material has evolved greatly over the years, to the point where he visits the quarries 8 to 10 times a year: “Before, I only liked single marbles, with no vein. As I learned to study them, I realized that they were essential, that they showed the life of the stone. This collection is a kind of praise for stone.” And these two basins have completely different designs: the square-shaped Herma is carved into the marble, while Gradina has a round shape and feels like it’s “sprouting” from the stone block.

After having collaborated on the Versailles collection in 2020, the lighting editor Delisle has once again called on Jean-Michel Wimotte to imagine the In-Folio lantern, the fruit of the designer’s futuristic vision and the exceptional know-how of the Delisle company, which publishes high quality lighting. In-Folio was presented exclusively in January at Maison & Objet in the city and made a strong impression, with the softness of the circular light in this curved glass work.

When they proposed a collaboration to Jean-Michel Wilmotte, the Lelièvre teams did not realize how much knowledge the architect has in textiles. As Wilmotte readily recalls, he even created and managed his own textile company for several years. This saved time when designing Big Tie, named after the architect’s own dressing room where he had the idea of reinterpreting the jacquard tie patterns, using the tones of his own Aplat by Wimotte chromatic range. Contrary to the classic collections of the textile editor, Big Tie by Wilmotte was thought differently: the starting point was to determine colors (chalk, graphite, charcoal …), then to juggle with the patterns by playing with the scales, the effects of relief, to finally arrive at fifty references. Note that colors have been added to the usual plain colors of the ranges for a perfect match with the patterns.

Under the direction of Anne Bony, Skira is publishing a new book on the work of Jean-Michel Wilmotte. A catalog raisonné that evokes the furniture and objects designed by the architect and designer over the past forty years, from the iconic Attila collection (1982) inspired by the Jardin du Luxembourg gate to the urban furniture that populates our daily lives.