Matthieu GilletHeritage Architect

In 1775, Count d’Artois, brother of King Louis XVI and future King Charles X, purchased the Bagatelle estate in the Bois de Boulogne. Two years later, he made a bet with his sister-in-law, Queen Marie Antoinette, that he could build a villa there during the few weeks the court resided at the Chateau de Fontainebleau. To the great satisfaction of the count, the Château de Bagatelle, designed as a neo-Palladian pleasure house by architect Francois-Joseph Belanger, was constructed in just sixty-four days.

Spared by the Revolution, it was bought in 1806 by Emperor Napoleon I for his son, and later returned to the royal family during the Bourbon Restoration, before being purchased by the Marquis of Hertford. Upon his death, the estate passed to his presumed son, the collector Sir Richard Wallace, who made numerous transformations before the city acquired it in 1905.

The agency is made up of Matthieu Gillet, chief architect of monuments, manager, four salaried architects and three private collaborators, as well as an assistant, providing secretarial and administrative organisation. The agency has a network of competent external collaborators, recurring partners, who make it possible to adapt the teams to the workload, and to associate specific expertise or experience with each project. The agency collaborates on a recurring basis with design offices and construction economists, who specialise in the restoration of historic monuments.

The Matthieu Gillet agency has offices located at 39 avenue de la République, in Paris, in the 11th arrondissement, which provides quick access to all the capital's train stations and the main transport routes.