I was looking back at some old pictures from a trip to Paris in 2012, and this broken tile mosaic floor caught my attention. I photographed it since I loved the look and style of it, but I neglected to take a picture of the store or cafe in which I found it. You’d think that something like this would be somewhat unique, but an image search reveals a fair number of similar-style mosaic floors, including multiple locations in Paris. Granted, what was seen in 2012 may no longer be there now, and my location-tagging from my iPhone at the time places this location on Rue Saint-Dominique near the intersection with Rue Augereau, but a current-day street view doesn’t reveal anything that seems to have this floor.
I see a similar floor at the Brasserie De L’Opera, but that’s in Vichy, not Paris; someone’s blog post shows a picture of a similar floor at the restaurant Le Baratin, but that’s in a different part of Paris. Maybe this type of flooring is not so unique afterall? I guess not, since you can order something similar from a manufacturer in China, although maybe they ripped it off after seeing pictures of something like it in Paris.
At any rate, I love this design and would be open to the idea of having a floor like this in a house of mine if the situation presented itself.
You know what it is? I think maybe subconsciously I was attracted to this because I had a phase in the late 1980s and even extending up through the 2000s where I made art in this style. Two samples of this include my drawing “Untitled” from 1987, below left, and “The Bather” from 2009, below right – both executed before seeing the mosaic tile floor in Paris – I only bring this up so that you don’t think I simply copied the style.
