Jean-Marie Massaud once designed a hotel that flies

Among his projects there is a hotel that flies. In 2005 Jean-Marie Massaud began Manned Cloud with ONERA, France's aerospace research centre: an airship conceived as a travelling hotel. Born in Toulouse in 1966 and trained at ENSCI in Paris, he moves from objects to architecture without changing the question he asks.

The furniture half of that career reaches us through two houses we carry: Arper, with the Aston and Aston Club seating, and MDF Italia, whose Yale sofa won the Compasso d'Oro. La Mercanti puts both to work where an office receives people.