Valérie Chomarat
Valérie Chomarat is an architect and designer known for her serene and highly refined approach to contemporary living. Working across projects in Geneva, Menorca, Bandol, and Warsaw, her villas, chalets, fincas, and yachts are defined by a sensitive balance between architecture, landscape, and atmosphere.
Deeply influenced by her childhood in the Ardèche and by Japanese architecture, Chomarat approaches each project through ideas of perspective, threshold, light, and connection to nature. Her work is rooted in careful preliminary studies and hand sketches, allowing geography, climate, history, and purpose to shape the design process.
After studying architecture in Lyon, Milan, and Paris, she moved to London and joined the studio of John Pawson, whose philosophy of proportion, space, light, and materiality continues to inform her signature minimalist language today.
“The interior is the continuity of the exterior and nature.”
INTERVIEW
I grew up in a house in the middle of the forest in Ardeche, middle of France. Living with nature, my mother was passionate about landscape design, and our house was deeply influenced by traditional Japanese architecture.
I met John Pawson in 2002. Minimum was my bible book during my architecture studies, and he asked me to be in charge of the interior design of two yachts: a Perini navy 164’: Baracuda and a smaller sailing yacht B60: 60’. I can say that was the turning point of my career designing yacht interiors. After those projects, I left London for Geneva and Paris, where I met Denis Montel (RDAI) and Pierre Alexis Dumas (Hermes), with whom I did the artistic direction and interior design for day boats.
Exploring our relationship with the surrounding nature and landscape is fundamental in all my projects. Perspectives, materials, shadows, and light are my tools to create harmony and calm in a mountain house, or a small day boat, or to design the perfect candle holder that will light our diners.
The interior is the continuity of the exterior and nature: I always try to reduce the edge visually and in its materiality. Materials and colors in my project always come from the surrounding context and nature.
Timeless interiors come from the choice of materials and designs; the selection between antiques, vintage, and contemporary furniture is very important to create harmony. The art selection is also essential for the story.
I would say that my creative process starts like an archeologist: I always do a lot of research: for a house, on the location, the history of the country, the city, for an object, I proceed in the same way because we always have lessons to get from the past and from nature…
Then Art is a fundamental inspiration in my work, I learned about minimalism from Donald Judd, Carl Andre, and Lee Ufan, and about materiality from Andy Goldsworthy, Richard Long, and all artists from the land art.
Finally, drawing with pencil perspectives is essential to get the proportions, the lines, and shapes, and to understand how the natural light will enter a space or touch a shape…
I really like Noé Duchaufour Lawrence’s designs, especially with “made in situ” and “Maison Intègre”. His approach is such a great inspiration. My family is in the textile industry, and I have a particular relationship with fabrics: I admire Sheila Hick and Annie Albers’ works as well as Agnes Martin.
My favorite object of design is the candle holder; I collect them, and I have designed a series for When Objects Work.
Humility.
Social media and the profusion of images show how important it is to connect the interior, the object, to life and surroundings, and how important it is to stimulate and keep the imagination free.
Sometimes our temporality to create does not match the temporality of the demand.
This is why the advice I would give to beginning artists is to use all the time they have for the creation process and not go too fast….
Letters to a Young Poet – Maria Rilke
In Praise of Shadows – Tanizaki Junichiro
Thank you so much Valérie, for this lovely interview!
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