Ciel de Paris

“The challenge was to make the Tour Montparnasse desirable,” says French designer Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance of his new interiors for the Ciel de Paris, the skyscraper’s 56th-floor rooftop restaurant with the city’s most extensive panoramic view. “I wanted to make a warm, convivial and festive ambiance,” he adds, “and a place where out-of-town visitors would come with their fiancées as a first stop.”

He succeeded, and it was no mean feat: The 1973 tower tops every Parisian poll as the most detested building in town, a jarring vertical sore thumb in a lovely horizontal landscape. The new decor is soothing and sophisticated, echoing the curved shape of the room with a striking amber-toned bar. Cozy round banquettes and armchairs in sumptuous camel leather are set off against walls painted a taupe gray warmed up with a touch of magenta.

Another tour de force—confirming the designer’s status as one of the hottest talents in town—are the 275 satellite-shaped ceiling lights centered with cleverly angled mirrors that reflect fractions of the stunning exterior view. “At night, the aureoles of light reflected in the windows create a fusion between inside and out that gives the impression of racing through the Paris skies,” he explains. “It’s an invitation to float in space in the comfort of a cocoon.” New, too, is chef Christophe Marchais’s bar-and-bistrot menu, served nonstop from 8 am to 11 pm. www.cieldeparis.com

Originally published in the July/August 2012 issue of France Today