Silvera x Pathé Palace: spotlight on the offices

Silvera supported the fit-out of the new Pathé corporate headquarters' workspaces, housed within the Pathé Palace, boulevard des Capucines in Paris. Selected to oversee the specification, selection and deployment of all professional furniture, Silvera worked across the offices, collaborative spaces and meeting rooms. Led under the architectural direction of Renzo Piano, this large-scale 9,500 m² tertiary project illustrates how furniture helps create working environments that are functional, sustainable and true to the identity of a place.

By reinvesting in the historic Pathé Palace building, Pathé Group set out to bring its teams together within a single corporate headquarters, designed to support new ways of working. Behind the Haussmannian façade, the upper floors now house contemporary offices that engage in dialogue with the cinema screens and reception spaces designed by Renzo Piano.

The works, launched in 2019, were completed in July 2024, just ahead of the Paris Olympic Games. The project's ambition went beyond the simple restructuring of a building. The aim was to create a working environment equal to both the site's history and the demands of a forward-looking group, where architecture, uses and the quality of spaces all reflect a single shared vision.

Working alongside the project teams, Silvera supported the specification, selection and deployment of furniture across all the working spaces.

The project had to meet several challenges: supporting the transition to flex office working for 200 employees, with a ratio of 0.7 desks per employee, offering spaces capable of accommodating varied and hybrid uses, preserving aesthetic coherence throughout the headquarters, and ensuring every choice was grounded in a sustainable approach.

This transformation involved moving from traditional offices to a wide diversity of spaces: open-plan areas, meeting rooms, coworking zones, acoustic booths, collaborative spaces and a cafeteria, conceived as a complete ecosystem supporting new ways of working.

As a leading partner in workspace design, Silvera directed its choices towards brands recognised for the durability and relevance of their offer in tertiary environments, favouring products designed to stand the test of time without losing their functional quality or aesthetic coherence. Environmental considerations guided every selection: noble, sustainable materials, committed manufacturers, and the exclusion of leather and non-renewable materials, in line with the group's CSR policy.

For this high-end project, Renzo Piano himself oversaw every interior decision, while Jérôme Seydoux, Pathé's chairman, was personally involved in choosing finishes and materials.

As with every project, Silvera's teams carried out extensive selection work to identify the most suitable solutions. Behind each chosen reference lie careful decisions around materials, finishes, comfort, durability and quality of use, with one constant objective: to offer furniture capable of standing the test of time while supporting employees' everyday working lives.

In the open-plan areas, workstations are organised around Unifor's Flipper benches, whose solid wood tops bring warmth and character to the working environment. The meeting rooms extend this design language with the Flipper and Moodway tables, paired with EA108, EA118 and EA119 chairs by Vitra, from the Aluminium Group, a true benchmark in contract furniture.

The collaborative spaces feature Framery One and Q Meeting Maggie acoustic booths, made from recycled and recyclable materials, offering confidential spaces for discussion while enhancing the acoustic comfort of the floors.

Designed as genuine living spaces, the social areas host a selection of iconic pieces of contemporary design: the Swan and Egg armchairs as well as the Plenum sofa by Fritz Hansen, the 8 sofas by Cassina, the Essay and Supercircular tables, the Grand Prix chair, the Zinta bench by Arper, the Aava stool, the Puck pouf by Enea, and the Piano Design Bookshelf by Riva. Each piece helps create welcoming atmospheres that extend the architectural quality of the project into the more informal spaces.

The Pathé Palace project illustrates the central role that furniture specification now plays in the design of working environments.

Considered from the earliest stages of the project, furniture no longer serves a purely functional purpose. It structures spaces, supports new ways of working, enhances everyday comfort and contributes fully to a place's architectural identity.

Through this project, Silvera reaffirms its conviction: a successful tertiary project is born from the balance between architecture, design and user experience. Furniture thus becomes a genuine lever in service of the quality of spaces and the way they are experienced.

​​Architect: Renzo Piano
​​​​Furniture: Silvera
​​​​​Photos: Office Et Culture​