Luc Svetchine

« La fluidité des lignes »  

Architecte azuréen, concepteur de villas en osmose avec le patrimoine architectural et végétal, et auteur de l’extension du Grand Hôtel du Cap Ferrat, ce prix récompense son œuvre.

Prix Carrière

Luc Svetchine’s first creation was a contemporary raw concrete house called Les Trois Caps, standing among pines on Cap Ferrat with views of Cap Martin and Cap d’Antibes. “It was a lucky break, because the client gave me a free hand. That’s rare in this business,” says the architect and son of an architect. He obtained his diploma in 1981, after studying in Versailles and Marseille. Les Trois Caps stands on the rock of the Cap Ferrat promontory and asserts its identity in raw concrete. It spreads out in zigzags among the pines, almost invisible. “In ethnology they speak of respecting the rights of the first inhabitants,” says Luc, who appreciates Palladio’s works as well as Jean Nouvel’s. Right now he’s working on a non-fiction comic about his sources and the architects that have left their mark on him. “My influencers,” he says with a smile. “As for me, I especially work with the evanescence of line and form -- which is not to say they don’t exist. One often walks past a building without paying attention to it, but if one day you stop and look the way artists and photographers do, a whole world opens up.”

Iconic Riviera hotels

“An architect should have a broad palette, like an actor who must be able to play any role,” says Luc Svetchine, who works in his human-scale studio on designs for private villas, hotels and heritage restorations. He has designed a 2000m2 contemporary extension to the Grand Hôtel du Cap Ferrat, and several extensions to Château Saint-Martin (originally a Knights’Templars’castle). He has worked on renovations to the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc. So his name is linked to some iconic Riviera hotels.

“Working abroad is a great opportunity to travel and meet different people,” says Luc Svetchine. He has worked in Japan, the Gulf, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and designed two projects on Île de la Réunion. “For the first of these, the client wanted me to work in the same spirit as at Villa Les Trois Caps. The other was in La Saline-les-Bains, which has high tourist value and is a protected area because of its coral reef. For this sensitive site I suggested a contemporary villa channelling the local vernacular. I designed all the furniture and even the tableware. That’s a constant with the agency’work: getting involved and facing up to difficulties, from the basic concept to the finer details.”