For Temple, ciguë samples noble art and pared-back design

The Temple | Noble Art Boxing Club stages decisive and improbable encounters between boxing coaches from gritty local neighbourhood boxing halls and an exacting community of members, taking place somewhere between the heights of pugnacity and the secret underbelly of the capital. To stage these encounters, ciguë has neutralised the showy ostentation expected from an exclusive sports club, instead highlighting the authenticity of the venue and the people who visit Temple’s two new venues.

For Temple | Saint-Lazare, nestling under a 1930s building, ciguë highlights Art-déco codes referencing an old boxing club in Pigalle. A discreet offcentre entrance and a steep uplit staircase lead straight to the ring, which is lit by a huge neon light fitting. The bar, with its pleated cast concrete skirt, is preceded by a velvet sofa set off by the pale oak mosaic parquet floor. For the rest, the materials form a common thread, the edges are underlined, the kickboards are highlighted, and a ribbon of black Terrazzo runs from the steps to the bar and on to the changing rooms, as ineluctable as the minutes that tick by on the imposing match clock keeping time in this timeless space.

It’s Back to the Future at Temple | Motte-Piquet Grenelle, where it’s all about brutalism versus 70’s lobby chic. The somewhat chilly grandiloquence of this basement space under a business hotel is neutralised by the warm minimalism of ciguë’s intervention: an elegant staircase leads to a space with walnut panelling and contrasting sprayed plaster rendering, highlighting the high ceilings and a boxing ring of Olympic dimensions (7x7). The ring stands proudly under 49 hanging bowl lights inspired by Marcel Breuer’s MET. A long green leather banquette stretches out beside the long, narrow bar, and there’s ever-so-slightly retro cream-and-charcoal checkerboard tiling in the changing rooms.

In both clubs, leather punchbags are suspended from self-supporting tubular steel structures. Sleek, comfortable changing rooms offer pale oak individual lockers named after the world’s boxing champions…and a sauna: an aura of introspection prevails, truth lies in the hidden depths…and it smells of bay rum.

Team:
Client: Temple | Noble Art

Material Used:
1. Boxing hall : pale oak mosaic parquet flooring, cast concrete, black terrazzo, mirrors, neon lights.
2. Changing rooms : walls clad in bespoke white terrazzo, black terrazzo flooring, solid stained oak, black steel metalwork.
3. Solid ipé floor, sprayed plaster rendering, diorite stone, walnut wall panelling, mirrors, steel bowl lighting.