A Conversation with Charles Zana

For the last thirty years, from Paris to London via New York, Miami and Monaco, Charles Zana has provided finesse and expertise to the world’s most beautiful interiors. In three decades, Zana, who studied architecture at the Beaux-Arts in Paris, has defined his unique style sought by his clients who seek the exclusive vision of this art lover, creatively passionate about design. As a returning member of our Design + Art Advisory Council, Charles joined us for a rapid-fire round of questions on whose work he's excited about, conversation-starters in his collection, and more.

After 15 years, what do you think continues to set Salon Art + Design apart?

What I have always loved about Salon is its freedom. Art and design, historical and contemporary pieces, established names and discoveries coexist very naturally. I have never believed very much in categories.

But Salon is also about people. I love the conversations, seeing old friends, meeting new ones. A fair is not only a place to discover objects — it is a place where ideas circulate and relationships begin.

And Salon is very New York. I lived in New York and remain deeply attached to the city and its scene. I have always felt that every city has its own identity, its own music, its own soul, and its own rhythm and cultural calendar. Globalization may have made the world more uniform, but these differences remain. New York could never be confused with anywhere else.

The Park Avenue Armory embodies this for me. I love places with history. As an architect, I am always interested in creating from what is already there, rather than erasing it. History gives you something to respond to.

Coming back to the Armory for Salon, at the same moment as the great art sales, has become one of my New York rendezvous.

What’s the best thing you’ve ever discovered at a fair that you weren’t looking for?

Very often, the things I love most are the things I was not looking for.

You arrive with certain ideas and suddenly a piece stops you. It can be something important or something very modest. What matters is that immediate emotional reaction.

And your eye never stops changing. Something you might not have understood ten years ago can suddenly become completely obvious to you.

For me, collecting begins with curiosity, desire and surprise.

Whose work are you especially excited about right now — whether emerging or newly on your radar?

Recently, I have found myself looking more and more towards American design and craft traditions. Last year I added another Wharton Esherick "Hammer Handle" Chair to my collection. I now have five — and I am still looking for the sixth.

Through Esherick, I began looking more deeply at a whole American lineage — from Shaker furniture and the Arts and Crafts movement to the extraordinary studio furniture tradition that followed.

Perhaps it is also connected to the house I have just completed in Bedford, where I found myself looking at the simplicity and rigor of Shaker architecture in a new way.

There is something in this American way of making that speaks to me very strongly right now: the honesty of the materials, the intelligence of construction, the importance of the hand, and the idea that simplicity can have enormous presence.

For me, it also says a great deal about America itself — a certain independence, pragmatism and freedom, but also a deep relationship with landscape, material and making.

I have a feeling we are going to look at this tradition again with fresh eyes. What interests me is not nostalgia or reproducing a style, but understanding what it can teach us today.

What piece in your own collection always starts a conversation?

Perhaps one of my pieces by Ettore Sottsass. Sottsass has been an extraordinary presence in my life, both as a collector and as a designer.

His work can be radical, intellectual, humorous and sensual at the same time. It never simply occupies a room — it creates a relationship with the architecture, the other objects and the people living around it.

I have always been attracted to objects that go beyond their function and acquire a presence of their own.

When you walk into Salon, what are you looking for first?

To be surprised.

I don’t want simply to find what I already know I like. I want an object, an artist, a material or an unexpected juxtaposition to change my eye a little.

And I am looking for people. A conversation with a gallerist, an artist or a collector can completely change the way you see a piece.

This is what I love about the New York scene. Paris, Milan, London and New York each have their own conversations, their own energy, their own rhythm. We need these differences. They are what make travelling, looking and collecting exciting.

What exhibition or cultural event is at the top of your must-see list this fall?

During Paris Art Week, I am preparing Something Else, a very personal exhibition bringing together art, furniture and objects, including a dialogue with the work of Mario Schifano.

I don’t want it to feel like an exhibition in the conventional sense. I want to create an atmosphere, almost a lived interior, where different periods and disciplines coexist freely.

I would love Something Else to have a second life in New York next spring. Taking something conceived in Paris and allowing it to evolve through the energy of New York and its art scene feels very natural to me.

And when I return for Salon, I am particularly looking forward to Brancusi: The Artist and His Studio at MoMA. I know the Atelier Brancusi in Paris very well, and I am curious to rediscover these works in a completely different context.

Brancusi has always been fundamental to me. His studio was a world in itself: sculpture, bases, furniture, objects and space all belonged to the same vision. That idea is very close to the way I think.

What project or collaboration are you most excited about right now?

It is difficult to choose one. I feel the studio is at a particularly exciting moment.

I have just completed a house in Bedford, upstate New York, inspired by the simplicity and rigor of Shaker architecture. We are working on residences in Miami and on projects in Lisbon and Hong Kong.

In Paris, we are completing the Hôtel Seymour, opening in January 2027, an intimate hotel inspired by the elegance and slightly eccentric dandy spirit of the 1930s. I wanted it to feel as though it had always existed.

This summer also marked the opening of the Fonds Bustamante in Arles. It is another project rooted in an existing place and its history. I love this kind of work. I don’t see history as something that restricts creation; for me, it is something to create from. You listen to what is already there and then add another layer.

At the same time, we are developing a furniture collection with ÆQUO in India, while I am preparing Mentors, a personal book and exhibition around figures who have shaped my way of seeing.

Architecture, furniture, art and collecting have never felt like separate worlds to me. They are connected by places, by history, by objects — and above all by people.

Ultimately, whether I am designing a house, a hotel, a piece of furniture or a place for art, I am asking myself the same question: How can architecture, art and design come together to shape a way of living?