10 Q&A with Archilovers: India Mahdavi

Architect and designer, India Mahdavi is based in Paris. Her studio, created in 1999, is known for the diversity of its international projects which explore the fields of architecture and scenography, interior, furniture and object design. Her signature has become a reference for renowned hotels and restaurants such as The Gallery at sketch in London.

The interiors she conceives are elegant, fluid, and in relation to the essence of their location. She says: "The location and space are the starting point of all of my projects and each project is like an open question, for which there is a unique answer. Each project tells that inner story."

Here, we ask India Mahdavi to give us an inside look at her life:

1. When you were a child, what did you dream you'd become? When did you realize you’d become a designer?

I never thought I would become an architect, as a child, I wanted to be a film maker and that dream is still vivid.
In my career as an interior architect and designer, I have managed to find a middle ground between film and architecture. I perceive my projects as permanent movie sets. I’ve always trained my eye to see as a camera.

sketch, London.

2. What are your passions besides architecture?
My passion is everything that inspires my creativity. I love the act of creating in any field, as it is an expression of love..and of course color which has become my signature!

Germain, Paris | Ph © Derek Hudson.

3. What’s the projects among yours that better represents you?
Every project is different and equally important, but I would say that The Gallery at sketch in London made a very strong impact.

4. Name a person from today or the recent past you would invite for dinner and why.
I would have loved to have dinner with Ettore Sottsass. I never had the chance to meet him. I not only love his work but he appears to be a very charming, intelligent, lovely genius.

5. If you were given a chance to be reborn again, what would you want to be?
A filmmaker.

6. What does your house look like?
My apartment looks like me, polyglot & polychrome, an accumulation of objects, furniture and art that I’ve gathered over the years..like layers of my life!

L’Apogée Courchevel, France.

7. What’s the trip or city you will never forget and what is your dream destination?
Tokyo is the most exotic and inspiring city, you can never get enough and every time you discover a new side of it. Japan, like Italy, is always an aesthetic journey in a philosophical way..

8. Is there a particular place in you city you live that inspires you or where you love spending your time?
Arles-Tehran-Siwa, my elsewhere trilogy.

9. List your favorite material, shape and color.
They all come together in my Bishop stool, made of enameled ceramic, we just launched a new color, purple.

10. List your favorite book, movie, song.
Polychromie Architecturale by Le Corbusier;
The Party by Blake Edwards;
Kind of Blue by Miles Davis.