A Moscow Home Where Culture, Craft, and Comfort Converge

Art Bureau 1/1 designs a Moscow apartment rich in memory, texture, and quiet nods to a family's French-Russian roots

In the heart of Moscow, an apartment by Art Bureau 1/1 becomes more than a home - it becomes a story. Designed for a well-traveled client with French-Russian heritage, this space gently bridges continents, generations, and identities.

This space gently bridges continents, generations, and identities, Image: Ilya Klimov

Founders Lena Solovyeva and Ilya Klimov were tasked with combining three apartments into a family sanctuary, tailored to a life lived between cities. The layout is both expansive and intimate: three bedrooms, each with its own serene bathroom; a children’s room with a playroom tucked away; an open, central living space that welcomes gatherings and quiet mornings alike; and a study-library that mirrors the intellectual heritage of its owner.

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The central living space that welcomes gatherings and quiet mornings alike, Image: Ilya Klimov

But the design's soul lies deeper - in the textures, materials, and whispered references to landscape and memory. “We thought a lot about how to translate legacy through a modern lens,” Solovyeva shares. The answer came through nature: birch bark in stone, the icy shimmer of Lake Baikal, the deep wine-red shades of architectural portals. Russian classics like poplar root and Karelian birch were reinterpreted in understated elegance, grounding the home in place without leaning on pastiche.

The design's soul lies deeper - in the textures, materials, and whispered references to landscape and memory, Image: Ilya Klimov

Tactility plays a starring role throughout. Walls shift subtly in tone from snow-white to cream and baked milk, setting the stage for a quiet play of textures - brushed wood, glossy lacquer, silky satin, and Japanese ceramics. Fabrics range from raw linen to plush bouclé. Its design is not meant to shout, but to be felt - a layered experience that unfolds over time, becoming more intimate with daily life.

Walls shift subtly in tone from snow-white to cream and baked milk, Image: Ilya Klimov

There’s no showmanship here, yet status is unmistakably present. Custom furniture by Art Bureau 1/1 sits alongside curated works by design icons like Pierre Yovanovitch, Christophe Delcourt, and Stéphane Parmentier, selected together with the client at fairs in Paris, Brussels, and Milan. The result is a space that feels personal and rare, a dialogue between fine art and functional beauty.

The space feels personal and rare, a dialogue between fine art and functional beauty, Image: Varvara Toplennikova

This apartment isn’t simply a return to Moscow - it’s a reclamation of identity, shaped by global experience and anchored in design. For a client whose connection to Russia is part history, part legend, it offers something quietly powerful: a place to belong.