Arthur Dreyfus's apartment
64 m²
Paris, France
Contemporary classic
Retro-contemporary
Two-storey
Arthur Dreyfus
For Sloft+ members only
This Guided Tour is from
Sloft Edition 02
Strangely enough, when I asked Arthur Dreyfus to open the doors of his home to us, he recoiled, explaining that revealing his interior was basically the most intimate thing about him. For a writer who has said everything about what goes on in his body and mind, in an uncommonly naked exercise begun with his
Histoire de ma sexualité (Éditions Gallimard), and completed by the imposing (not to say enormous)
Journal sexuel d'un garçon d'aujourd'hui (Éditions P.O.L), this came as a surprise.
Did he see his habitat as his last line of defense when he'd already said it all?
Was I unwittingly touching the last taboo of this Freud and psychoanalysis enthusiast? Did he see his habitat as his last line of defense when he'd already said it all? He finally decided to take it down for us. Of course, he wrote about this apartment in his diary. In particular, construction work. He even confesses to having organized a few
"booty calls" on site. All that remained was to show it off.
A place that reflects life, his life, where everything makes sense.
And the result is anything but banal. It's a house that tells the story of the people around him who built it with him, a place in the image of life, of his life, where everything makes sense, where every object bears witness to a story. "
The more interior you are, the more it rubs off on your interior," he says, as if to apologize. An ultra-significant interior, then, or rather the intimate memory of a writer constantly revived as he looks at himself, at this home that resembles him, this place he really feels he inhabits. A habitat that's ready to speak to those who know how to listen, through the intermediary of its master builder. Let's listen to Arthur tell us about his home in a new exercise in unveiling. A way for him to feel free for good? With a smile, he replies that
"
When all is said and done, only the secrets remain".
"When I was twenty, I dreamed of an empty apartment, a little Japanese. And that wasn't me. I'm a much more composite person."
