January 16-20, 2025 September 04-08, 2025


Navigation version Desktop



Contenu de la page


Talents / Lionel Jadot, Designer of the Year - Hospitality

Lionel Jadot, Designer of the Year - Hospitality

Published on 30 April 2024 Share

Maison&Objet.- Talents - Lionel Jadot - Designer of the Year - Hospitality - Hospitalité - ©Tim Van De Velde

Belgian national, designer, decorator, and artist Lionel Jadot epitomises an era of profound ecological change, intuitively mastering its codes. He will receive his prize during the upcoming Maison&Objet edition, scheduled from September 5 to 9, 2024.

Lionel Jadot was born in a chairmaking workshop in Brussels, where his family had crafted stylish chairs and sofas for six generations. The rest of his story unfolds like a novel fueled by a child's early passion for transforming workshop gleanings. Jadot creates unique works, favouring durable objects over disposable catalogue items. He is also an interior designer, recently completing the Mix, a hybrid hotel-living space in Brussels, collaboratively shaped with around fifty creators. This endeavour offers an unforgettable hospitality experience, fostering ecological, serene, and desirable design. Most of these “makers” are housed in his workshop in Zaventem, a proper breeding ground for talent. Selected for their ability to shake up the established order, they open the way for ecological, serene and desirable design.

Maison&Objet.- Talents - Lionel Jadot - Designer of the Year - Hospitality - Hospitalité

Where does your obsession with recovery come from?

“My parents’ chair-making workshop was a playground where I collected treasures from discarded pieces. These rejects were like Kapla building blocks for me to build forts with. I also crafted my first stool at six.”

How did you become a designer?

“After completing a secondary cycle at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, I apprenticed alongside artisans and renowned international architects collaborating with my parents’ workshop. At 19, after my mother's passing, I assumed management of the family business and honed skills in orders, schedules, creation, deliveries, and customer relations. In my first apartment, I fashioned panelling from turn-of-the-century doors, igniting my passion for design. Establishing my studio in 2000, focusing on material recovery, led to rapid success.”

Maison&Objet.- Talents - Lionel Jadot - Designer of the Year - Hospitality - Hospitalité

“The customer is ready to accept unique and different objects rather than products from the other side of the world.” L. Jadot

Then you set up the Zaventem Workshops…

“Seeking a new workshop, I discovered an old stationery factory in Zaventem spanning 6000 square meters. Envisioning a community of creator-producers, we selected radical profiles, each with unique skills and clientele. The candidates had to have a creative fire and the desire to change things. Their skills vary. One works with salt and another tans eggplant skin. Each is independent of its clientele.”

What is your philosophy?

“I don’t believe in just one way of thinking. When we work on a project with my collaborators, the thread we pull becomes too obvious and boring after a while. So, I break the thread, and we start from scratch. I hate catalogues; I prefer chaos and accidents.”

Maison&Objet.- Talents - Lionel Jadot - Designer of the Year - Hospitality - Hospitalité

You have just completed Mix Brussels; what is your concept of hospitality?

“Initially, this building was built in 1969 to house the insurance company, to be partly transformed into a four-star 180-room hotel, with a 2,500 square meter food court and a 3,000 square meter gym. I brought fifty-two designers to work on the project. The style is brutalist, like the original building, but with prudent comfort and finishes. Life is everywhere, and we feel good there. Ultimately, the owners are at the head of a collection of numbered and signed design collectibles. Everything was manufactured within 50 kilometers. When I'm in a hotel, I like to be projected into something that surprises me. Today, the customer is ready to accept different, unique furniture lines rather than products from the other side of the world.”

What is your Maison&Objet project?

“I am going to create a central pavilion that will illustrate my philosophy of hospitality, but in a more radical and experimental way. A whole series of artists will intervene, each with different techniques for processing recycled material. The idea is to appreciate the design and the way it was produced.”

plan 3d


Bandeau Newsletter


KEEP UP TO DATE: WE’LL TELL YOU ALL ABOUT IT

Maison&Objet also means thematic newsletters, to enjoy as you wish and help you learn, feed your curiosity and get inspired. Select them all or choose whichever you like most!

M É TIERS D’ART

Select your newsletters:

Personal Data collected is intended for SAFI SALONS, SARL, SIRE 380176289, with its headquarters at 8 Rue CHAPTAL, 75009 Paris, FRANCE. In accordance with EU Regulation #2016/679 of April 27, 2016 on the protection of Personal Data, and the amended "Data Processing and Civil Liberties" Law of January 6, 1978, you are entitled to the access, correction, deletion, portability, and limitation of Data Processing related to you, as well as the right to provide instructions on what happens to your Data after your death. You may also, for legitimate reasons, express your opposition to the Processing of Data related to you. You may exercise your rights by contacting the following email address: exercervosdroits@safisalons.fr .

For more information about the Processing of your Personal Data by Safi Salons, please visit our privacy policy, available on our website at: https://www.maison-objet.com/en/paris/legal-notice#legal_1

View more

Thanks! We’ll see you in your inbox very soon !