LIFE BEYOND FIRST CLASS
DESIGN & ARCHTIECTURE
WHERE INTERIORS GLOW
Le Soleia is a contemplative Mediterranean interior by interior designer Oscar Lucien Ono, where light, material restraint, and sculptural detail converge to transform hospitality into a quietly architectural work of art.
SAMANTHA GREENE
Following an early career shaped between Paris and London, Oscar Lucien Ono founded Maison Numéro 20 in 2014, establishing his practice in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. From its inception, the studio positioned itself within the lineage of the ensembliers décorateurs—a tradition that refuses to separate architecture, interiors, and the decorative arts. For Ono, space is never neutral. It is authored, layered, and composed with the precision of a narrative.
Educated in art history, Ono approaches interior design as a form of spatial storytelling. His work consistently demonstrates a sensitivity to time—how materials age, how light shifts, how craftsmanship reveals the presence of the hand. Whether designing private residences, hotels, restaurants, or boutiques, his interiors resist trend-driven gestures in favor of atmospheres that feel cultivated rather than produced. French chic, in his interpretation, is not about polish, but about restraint, tactility, and quiet confidence.
Central to Ono’s design language is his treatment of light. Rather than illuminating space, he composes with it. Chiaroscuro, transparency, and shadow are used as tools to articulate volume and surface, much as a painter might model form through contrast. Finishes are selected not for their immediate impact, but for how they respond over time—plaster that absorbs light unevenly, woods that soften, textiles that mute reflection. This painterly sensibility allows interiors to remain dynamic, shifting with the hour and the season.
These principles find one of their clearest expressions in Le Soleia, a four-star hotel on Avenue Victor Hugo in Nice. Here, Ono translates the Mediterranean not as a theme, but as a sensibility. The sun becomes the project’s organizing force—not symbolically, but structurally—guiding the palette, the geometry, and the rhythm of the interiors.
Curved forms dominate the spatial language, from custom furniture to architectural details, softening circulation and dissolving rigidity. The chromatic range—ochres, sands, pale terracottas, muted greens—recalls weathered coastal façades yet avoids nostalgia through careful abstraction. Artworks and sculptural elements are integrated as part of the architectural composition rather than applied decoration, reinforcing Ono’s belief that interiors should be experienced as continuous narratives.
Perhaps most emblematic is the ceiling installation conceived by Ono himself, a suspended composition that blurs the boundary between art and architecture. Neither purely ornamental nor overtly expressive, it introduces a contemplative vertical dimension, inviting the gaze upward and reinforcing the project’s celestial undertone.
In Le Soleia, Oscar Lucien Ono’s philosophy comes into full focus. It is a project less concerned with spectacle than with presence—where the imprint of the hand, the passage of time, and the quiet authority of beauty are allowed to unfold. As Ono himself notes, what matters most is creating places that tell a story. Le Soleia does so with clarity, restraint, and enduring authorship.
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