Collection by Leslie Hendry
furniture
In 2006, Claus—director of Claus en Kaan Architecten, one of the Netherlands’ top architectural practices—finally got inside Perret’s apartment. He was duly impressed. “It’s the sheer abundance with which limited materials are used here that first struck me,” he says. “The wall-to-wall French oak paneling, combined with materials that were ahead of their time—columns made not from marble but from stone-blasted concrete, the extraordinary round plaster ceiling inset, and the fiber-wood paneling—and his attention to the tiniest of details.”
He tracked down the organization that owns the apartment, the Association Auguste Perret, to see if he and his wife could rent the unit as a pied-à-terre. To his surprise, they said yes.
In the dining room, a marble-topped table by Eero Saarinen is ringed with Eames wire chairs. Through oak accordion doors, the atrium beckons with red Utrecht armchairs by Gerrit Rietveld and a yellow Diana table by Konstantin Grcic.
A 500-square-foot outdoor space with a grill, a table, and a hammock sits just off the entrance level of the townhouse, offering extra room for dining, relaxing, and entertaining. The corner couch is a custom piece inspired by the large cushions of Moroccan sofas. The Fermob table is paired with Hay Hee dining chairs by Hay.
In the dining room, the owners started with a sculptural Palais Royal Table, a Swedish design they obtained via StudioTwentySeven. Above it is a Strikha Pendant lamp by Faina, and the leather chairs are by their design team, Klein Agency. “All our pieces are produced locally here in workshops within a radius of 10 miles,” says Maša.
The furniture throughout the summer home is custom made to perfectly fit the compact interior. “Because the space is so small, you have to think of it as like a sailing boat and it has to be as smart as possible,” says architect Line Solgaard. “If we bought furniture it would be too big or take focus away from the architecture. The furniture we designed is integrated into the building.”