SmartShanghai | Un Paysage

Un Paysage

By Janice Bae, Jun 11th, 2009 | In Shopping

Walking into about-the-way furniture store Un Paysage is like stumbling into a carefully curated attic. There are pieces ("pieces" -- what couches and chairs and lamps become when they cost more than your rent) plucked from the Deco 30's, the suburban mod of the 60's, and psych posters ripped off the walls of the 70's. Most of them are from Germany, with a few armchairs from Denmark, Italy, and Norway. Definitely Denmark. They're real big on design. That's where thick black eyeglasses were first paired with shaved heads, FYI. Landmark moment.

Un Paysage mushes it all together, with whimsical tchotckes scattered about for levity. You can't just put four Arne Jacobsen chairs in a row and not have the place feel like a sci-fi movie. There are 1980s digital clocks next to 19,800rmb wooden cabinets, and vintage cake tins alongside a 17,150rmb GN2 armchair by Austrian furniture designer Peter Ghyczy, next to old benches ripped from train platforms (14,000rmb). Have you ever been in the Design Republic store on the first floor of Five on the Bund? Paysage is the French Concession equivalent -- designer-y but a bit less corporate and a bit more personalized.

There's a triptych of Moments in Design at Un Paysage: that GN2 chair by Peter Ghyczy, a desk chair by Arne Jacobsen (pioneer of the Danish Modern style), and a reclining chair from the Knoll Company, a forward-thinking company whose products are permamently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In and among the big-shot chairs, there are lamps of every type (hanging, standing, stained, paper, with no shades, with large shades), rich worn-leather luggage (570-2,000rmb), a red biking helmet for a really small head, several glass busts (Beethoven's is the most expensive; 1,500rmb), a magazine rack, and hip armchairs in the 10,000-13,000rmb range.

Obviously, Un Paysage isn't cheap. But for those of you with a bit of extra cash looking for a unique couch, armchair, lamp, or rolling alcohol tray to design a room around, this is your place. They've spent the time digging through the dusty shops and second-hand warehouses of wherever this stuff comes from (or ordering it from Europe) and collecting the finer pieces. That's what your paying for. It's nice. Check it out.