Tristan Auer's brief for Hotel Experimental Marais was an unusual one: take a building with a layered past — a 17th-century structure that passed through a telecoms operator and a previous hotel incarnation before landing with the Experimental Group — and make it feel entirely of the present. His answer, on rue du Temple in the 3rd arrondissement, was to reach further back than any of those histories, into the ecclesiastical. Grand arched recesses glow with backlighting along the bar walls, ribbed ceiling beams run in pale plaster above clusters of coral velvet chairs and blush sectional sofas, and the overall atmosphere is less hotel lobby than a candlelit chapel that has been very elegantly repurposed for pleasure. The 43 rooms navigate their own set of references with confidence. Some are anchored by deep mahogany panelling and teal ceramic lamps, with classical busts posed on red lacquer shelves — a wry collision of antiquity and Pop. Others lean warmer, pairing terracotta-veined marble headboards with dusty-pink armchairs and a red task lamp that looks borrowed from a Milanese design fair. The restaurant pulls a different crowd entirely: Warren Platner-style wire chairs surround glass-topped tables beneath tiered candle chandeliers, while a living wall of ivy closes off the courtyard-facing side. The darkly oxidised metal facade — bold and unapologetic against its pale Haussmann neighbours — signals from the street that this is the Experimental Group's first flagship, and it means business.

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