Galerie Gastou welcomes Hauvette & Madani, a duo whose work speaks naturally to its own history and choices. The same appetite for strong forms, for materials with something to say, and for objects that resist easy categories. Their practice, at the intersection of art, design and craft, extends a freedom the gallery has always defended. More than a shared style, it is a shared conviction: an object need not choose between being useful and being a work in its own right.

Since founding their Paris studio in 2009, Hauvette and Madani have treated interiors and furniture as part of the same language. Following Amuse-Bouche and Entremets, La 23ème heure completes a triptych. Rather than closing a chapter, it opens onto the interiors that will continue to take shape around these pieces. The collection began with a material: rotary-cut birch veneer, whose grain creates an almost silken moiré, and, above all, with a piece the duo could never quite find: a lounge chair. Lower than a dining chair but lighter than an armchair, it was designed for the conversations that linger around a coffee table once dinner is over.

Lacquer, a signature of the studio since its earliest furniture editions, is paired with wood whose grain catches the light. Colored-glass tops -amber, blush and yellow moiré- along with satin and linen fabrics and passementerie add restrained accents throughout. Each material has a presence without ever overstating its effect. As in their interior projects, every piece is designed to be seen from every angle. The back of a sofa, the outline of a lounge chair, the reflections of a tabletop or the profile of a floor lamp contribute as much to the room as their more immediately visible sides. Conceived as an interior landscape, the series creates a world in which line, material and light shape both a way of living and an atmosphere, somewhere between boudoir and backstage.