Before we talk about L’Éléphant, who are Álvaro and Joana, and what experiences have shaped how you look at interiors?
JOANA. My decision to study architecture had more to do with my interest in interiors than with architecture on a grand scale. That was always what drew me to the discipline. So, although my training was broad, throughout my professional career I tried to find places where I could practise and explore interior design.
ÁLVARO. I’m something of an odd mould. I’m not an architect, I didn’t study interiors, but I gradually shaped the way I see things, discover things, grow alongside them, and absorb the aesthetics of the world and everything it has brought my way. Then there are antiques, which have been part of my journey and have given me a slightly more classical perspective on decoration and interiors. But because there are two of us, the classic becomes modern, and the modern becomes classic.
How did L’Éléphant come about, and what did you feel was still missing from the industry when you decided to create the studio?
JOANA. L’Éléphant had an accidental beginning, born from the meeting of two people from two very different worlds. We felt there was room for an approach that was less about scenography and more about real life – creating environments with layers and lived experience, where the passage of time is embraced rather than something that constantly requires us to demolish and start again. That is what we propose at L’Éléphant: creating environments that are entirely diverse, just as people are.
The name L’Éléphant has a very particular strength. What is the story behind it?
ÁLVARO. L’Éléphant came from the need to change our name, because that wasn’t what we were called before, although our previous name was equally difficult to spell. The person who created our new identity understood us very well. It really comes down to something he said in one of our meetings: “You are the elephant in the room of interior design.” I think he got it exactly right. We don’t want to follow rules, we don’t want to play it safe; we want to be the elephant in the room. To show that we can, figuratively speaking, break all the rules.
L’Éléphant brings together interior architecture, furniture, art and objects. How do you define what you do without confining it to a single discipline?
JOANA. Not limiting ourselves to a single discipline is very much part of the identity of our work. And it doesn’t intimidate us; quite the opposite, it drives us. That is where the design process begins, because it requires bringing different voices into the conversation. And that is stimulating because it allows us to discover other worlds and work with different people. For us, that is what makes sense when creating an interior. It has to focus on personality, and personality is usually multifaceted. It cannot be confined to one particular field.
How does a project begin at L’Éléphant: with a conversation, an image, an object, a colour, or with the architecture of the place itself?
JOANA. A project can begin in many different ways. As a rule, though, we like to start with a conversation. The person who comes to us is the main character, so we need to get to know them, whether it is one person, several people or, in the case of a company, an organisation. Ultimately, it is about understanding their identity, what they want, what they dream of, and beginning to find a common thread. The more someone reveals of themselves, the stronger the starting point for a project.
At a time when so many images of interiors are designed to be consumed quickly, how do you create a space that remains interesting beyond the first impression?
ÁLVARO. Here at L’Éléphant, we try to create timeless projects that endure, so that people can live in their homes, hotels and restaurants for as long as possible.
There is a conversation I had with Jacques Garcia over dinner in Paris that keeps echoing in my head. He said: “Never do anything that is fashionable, because it quickly becomes unfashionable.” I think that is one of L’Éléphant’s principles. We’re not concerned with whether the Instagram consumer will find that particular moment appealing or not. We’re concerned with the client who will inhabit that space and needs to feel good there for many years to come. So we don’t think in terms of immediacy. There may be immediate moments, immediate solutions because they come naturally to us, but we don’t design for immediacy.
Travel plays an important role in the L’Éléphant universe. How does it influence the way you see and the studio’s creative process?
JOANA. Travel is a way of acquiring culture. Of gathering references. It is also a way of gaining insight into our clients’ own worlds. Every journey we take, and the history of every place we discover, becomes part of the references we carry with us. They stay with us. Sometimes they materialise in objects we bring back and keep here in our space. There is always an enormous temptation to bring things home from the places we visit.
Brazil, and São Paulo in particular, is a recurring reference in your visual world. What do you find in its visual and material culture that continues to surprise you?
ÁLVARO. São Paulo surprises me every time I go there. It is a second home. It is somewhere I feel good, somewhere I enjoy searching for things, discovering things from another world, from that world. And São Paulo always brings me happiness. A feijoada is a happy moment; a churrasco is a happy moment. And then there is the cultural experience. What Brazil offers in terms of artistic movements is extraordinary. Even the music, isn’t it? Brazilian music makes us feel things, it makes us move. And when you live in a place where being happy can almost feel like a crime, it is good to travel to the other side of the world and discover that there is no crime in being happy.
What role does colour play in L’Éléphant’s creative process: is it a starting point, a consequence, or a way of creating tension?
ÁLVARO. I’m very pleased that I get to talk about our relationship with colour. I can’t stand white or beige, I can’t stand colours with no personality, the kind that solve everything very easily. I have Joana to balance me out on these matters, when necessary, to bring me back down to earth, because if it were entirely up to me, everything would be colour and nothing would be simple or easy on the eye. I’m joking, of course, but I genuinely can’t live in a house without colour.
So, I bring that into the projects I work on, because I believe people can’t live without colour either. Colour is a magic formula. It is the light in a home, but it can also dim that light. People are always concerned with having plenty of light in their homes, but sometimes a house also needs places and moments where that extraordinary brightness isn’t there. Colour can do all of that: it absorbs when it needs to and reflects when necessary.
If you could name a new colour, what would you call it, and what memory or place would it hold within it?
ÁLVARO. Without going somewhere far away – although there are so many extraordinary places, and India immediately comes to mind – there is one colour that fascinates me. If I could refine it and somehow capture it, it would be the colour of the clay from Niza, in Portugal. I would probably call it Niza. You could make it more poetic, perhaps, by combining the clay of Niza with the small stones embedded in it. It would make a beautiful, warm colour. That is probably as far back as I can go in my memory of colour, and it is a colour that fascinates me.
If you had to choose two colours from the CIN Antologia collection to create an interior, which would you choose and what kind of atmosphere would you imagine for them?
JOANA. It’s difficult to choose just two. I would choose one colour that can take the place of a neutral and be deeply restful, in the sense that it doesn’t impose itself but creates an atmosphere of quiet: Orvalho. It evokes a private space, a bedroom perhaps, where you want to experience the softness of morning light. At the same time, under artificial light, it takes on a warmth and cosiness that I find particularly appropriate for a bedroom.
Within the same colour family, there is Cipreste, a striking, dark, dense colour that I would choose for a dining room, a library or an entrance hall: somewhere where you want to create a sense of impact, even a sense of occasion. It works beautifully with artificial light and lends itself to a more dramatic atmosphere, while still belonging to this family of colours that invite a sense of rest and are entirely rooted in nature. Greens allow us to bring a little of the outside world indoors.
