Jacquerie, or the return of the king

French decorator and antiquary Jacques Garcia

Passing the gallery

A photo: Vitaly Nefedov, - from the archive of the firm BAKER

Text: Lilia Gelman

Magazine: (92) 2005

French decorator and antiquary Jacques Garciawho became famous for the design of the Paris residence of the Sultan of Brunei, the Hotel Costes and the Mansard house in the aristocratic Marais quarter (see SALON-interior N 80), last year decided to expand his role and made his first furniture collection. For BAKER, with Garsievskoy luxury and purely royal scale. Collections BAKER they did only the great ones: the great Thomas Fezan, the great Barbara Berry, the great Bill Soffield ... They were united by impeccable taste, American origin and the general idea that Paris is the best city on earth. After New York, of course. Probably the same thoughts were swarming in the heads of the owners. BAKERbecause, choosing a new designer for their star company, they unanimously decided that they should be French. Present. One who would have absorbed the French traditions together with his mother’s milk, as he knew the history of his country and had the most important thing that a representative of another nationality couldn’t achieve in any way, and it’s in vain to try - perfect French taste. Jacques Garcia fit all articles. In childhood, Jacques collected antiquities, as other boys collect stamps and butterflies. As a magnet it attracted everything that was sewn, made, painted, woven before the revolution of 1789. That same one, the first of five, who invented Marseillaise, pushed General Napoleon and sent the beautiful Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI to the guillotine with her. For unexplained reasons, Garcia grew up as a fiery advocate for restoration. In the shops of Parisian junkmen, he sought out the remnants of former luxury: door handles, antique furniture, old portieres, in order to "recreate what so quickly disappeared during the revolution." Much later, Jacques Garcia will succeed in realizing his childhood dream by arranging his personal version of Versailles in a house in the Marais quarter erected 300 years ago by the court architect of the Sun King. Her main decoration will be the same collection of royal furniture and things in the revised and amended version. In the meantime, in the mid-60s, Garcia entered the Peninghen interior design school, where she specialized in the field of applied arts. After graduation, he works in an architectural bureau, changing his antiquities from time to time with ultramodern projects (the most notable of which are the interiors of the Montparnasse tower and the hotel chain Meridien). And again for the old: in the eighties, in addition to the house of Mansart, he decorated the royal-style private residences of Parisian aristocrats in royal style. In the early nineties, is taken for the hotels of the network Lusien Barriere. In 1992, he buys Champ de Bataille - a 17th century castle in Normandy and restores it, managing to organize an exhibition dedicated to Marie-Antoinette in the Carnavalet museum and the device of the Sultan of Brunei Paris residence ... 1995. Garcia’s merits are recognized by the French government: he receives the Legion of Honor to become king of the Parisian “counterrevolutionaries” a year later, having decorated the famous Hotel Costes in his favorite style (this is in the midst of minimalism!). Victoire! It remains to take stock: write a book and release your own furniture collection. The “Praise to the Interior,” which, on the eve of 2000, had thirty-four thousand copies, was completely sold out within six months. New collection BAKER показали в 2004 году. В Париже во время сентябрьской Maison&Objet. "В этой коллекции мебели я рассказал историю форм, материалов, орнаментов, любимых мной. Я погружался в эпоху, отдавая все лучшее, что было во мне: мои знания, мои чувства, мои эмоции. В ней присутствует некоторый налет ориентализма: что-то из быта офицера, участвовавшего в наполеоновских походах. Но главными источниками вдохновения для меня были XVII и XVIII века. В то время Франция превосходила всех в мире. Какое богатство форм! Какой неиссякаемый для всех нас источник вдохновения!" Иными словами, в моде не революции, а реставрации. Так говорит Jacques Garcia, and now it is not customary to argue with him.

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