Against the backdrop of the Parisian establishment vs the impressionist, a new painter decided to revive the unfashionable art of symbolist painting; this was Gustavo Moreau, the assembler of dreams. A relative recluse, he lived his life in relative occlusion, with only a small group of family and friends that maintained any form of correspondence. A prolific painter, Moreau produced some fifteen-thousand paintings, drawings, and sketches, almost exclusively found within his apartment come museum, in Paris; guarded by the artist, and kept away from almost every interested eye.
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Off this basis, the design for a small, discrete, and sumptuous apartment, studio, and gallery, centrally located within the heat of the modern city, was created. This private abode allows Moreau to
separate himself from the formality and propriety of his life, work and clients, and potentially find a new kind ship away from the bustling art world. The formal massing of the apartment uses the raumplan as its special precedent with a rise from the reception to dining to lounge and to the private suite. The change in level allows for the play of viewed and viewer, with the private suite hidden behind abstracted crenellations, able to discreetly observe incoming guests. The procession of space is similarly considered as to the events of an evening. From the reception area in which a centrally located conversation seat is placed, allowing for the scrutinisation of new arrivers, the adjacent kitchen and bathroom hides away the wet areas of the house under the bedroom, the dinning room and lounge room allow for a more equitable seating arrangement, and with the conversation chair in the lounge providing a certain intimacy, to the private suite, covertly placed as to give the appearance of privacy. Overall this terrace is one of discretion and of hidden opulence for a highly specific use.
