our visit, Hubert and I worked off the calories with a spirited stroll from the Place de la Madeleine across the Boulevard Haussmann to Rue La Fayette, to see a 120 sqm blank canvass in the heart of the city. Whether L’Appart Lafayette looks elegant, funky or formal is completely down the taste and imagination of the client. Well-suited for product launches and press conferences, this is not the place to bring your dancing shoes – the floor won’t take it. But dancing, playing air-guitar and just about any other form of adolescent exhibitionism is positively encouraged at the ‘rock ‘n’ luxe’ Murano in the Marais area. This is not a hotel, please note: it is an ‘urban resort.’ Meeting rooms are not the top item on the agenda at this property, and if you are the kind of client who balks at the idea of presenting your pitch in a bar-lounge to the accompaniment of a track last heard in Ibiza in the late 90s, then the Murano is not for you. You don’t have to be groovy to stay here, but it probably helps.</p>
Another hip and happening meeting space can be found in the distinctly edgy north-east tip of the city. The Centquatre, a former funeral parlour, is a huge light-filled event space and home to the largest collection of in-house artists in Europe. My visit coincided with a residency by British trip-hop big-wig Tricky and equally as impressive is the 39,000 square metre function space. The publicity material includes much worthy comment about the ‘production of living thought’, but of more practical use are the studios, showrooms and workshops which provide modern meeting and events facilities.
If the artistic innovation at Centquatre is your thing, chances are you will also feel at home in the eccentric