Seen from water level, the Ken Club pool is defined by a large porthole-like opening set into a pale wall, revealing neatly stacked towels beyond. The blue surface mirrors the circular aperture, creating a near-symmetrical composition that emphasises the project’s restrained yet playful geometry.

Rodolphe Parente and Marion Mailaender Channel 1980s Exuberance in Paris’s Reimagined Ken Club

Words by Yatzer

Paris, France

Renovating an institution is a delicate balancing act: change too little and nostalgia becomes inertia; change too much and the qualities that made it an institution in the first place risk disappearing. For Ken Club, a pioneering private sports club in Paris that helped redefine the city’s fitness culture in the 1980s, the challenge was particularly acute. Following a four-year overhaul, the club reopened in September 2026 with interiors by Rodolphe Parente and Marion Mailaender that channel its origins without attempting to recreate them. Playful curves, sleek metallic surfaces and candy-coloured accents now unfold across renewed training studios, changing rooms, pool and recovery areas, alongside a light-filled patio and garden, giving the club a spirited new identity rooted as much in conviviality as in exercise.

A circular window links the Ken Club’s turquoise indoor pool to the adjoining circulation space, framing a view of the flecked staircase beyond. Soft grey surfaces and oversized round ceiling lights give the pool area a calm, retro-futurist character, with water reflections amplifying the geometry.

Photography by Ludovic Balay.

A stainless steel column anchors one of the Ken Club’s principal circulation spaces, catching and refracting daylight against warm neutral walls. In the background, the upholstered staircase rises beneath a softly illuminated ceiling, while a circular wall opening continues the renovation’s recurring language of rounded geometry.

Photography by Ludovic Balay.

Founded in 1985 by Mireille and Pierre Benzaquen, the Ken Club was conceived from the outset as something more sociable than a conventional gym: a place where members could exercise, linger, meet and eat. Its combination of fitness and hospitality attracted a high-profile Parisian clientele and established an ethos that Arthur Benzaquen and his brother, Frank-Élie, carried forward after taking over the family business in 2001. For Arthur, who grew up in the club, the renovation was a deeply personal undertaking. “I didn’t try to recreate the past, but to recapture what was most precious about it,” he explains, pointing to the “carefree spirit of the 80s, its freedom, its joyful energy” as the project’s emotional starting point.

The choice of Rodolphe Parente and Marion Mailaender reflects exactly that spirit: both designers bring humour, joy and a sense of play to their interiors. Friends in their personal lives but never before collaborators, Parente and Mailaender translated Benzaquen’s brief into an exuberant yet disciplined interior language whose affinities with Memphis-era postmodernism are difficult to miss. The influential movement that emerged in Milan in 1981 rejected modernist restraint in favour of vivid colour, graphic pattern, unconventional geometry and unexpected material combinations, a similarly irreverent vocabulary that finds contemporary expression throughout the club.

The Ken Club’s main staircase curves upward beside a large circular opening edged in metal, one of several porthole-like motifs threaded through the interior. Cream-and-black flecked upholstery continues from the stair onto the floor, while planting glimpsed beyond softens the otherwise sculptural composition.

Photography by Ludovic Balay.

The renovated Ken Club pool pairs calm blue water with pale walls, circular ceiling lights and a metal-lined porthole connecting to an adjoining room. Reflections on the water double the rounded forms, giving the space an almost cinematic serenity within the club’s otherwise more exuberant interiors.

Photography by Ludovic Balay.

A circulation area combines curved metallic partitions, cork-clad wall panels and a speckled grey floor beneath oversized circular ceiling lights. Cool blue walls and glimpses of brighter blue beyond reinforce the women’s changing-area palette, while the rounded geometry gives the corridor a distinctly retro-futurist quality.

Photography by Ludovic Balay.

A glossy bubble-gum-pink reception desk forms an exuberant focal point against brushed metallic walls at the renovated Ken Club. Its soft, blob-like geometry gathers around a reflective cylindrical column, encapsulating Parente and Mailaender’s taste for unlikely material pairings, humour and deliberately playful form.

Photography by Ludovic Balay.

Underpinned by movement and what they call “playful precision”, Parente and Mailaender’s scheme draws on the body, its curves and tensions echoed in rounded openings, sweeping partitions and sculptural furniture, as well as on the material vocabulary of sports facilities, whose characteristic mix of glossy, matt, hard and soft finishes is reworked into deliberately unexpected juxtapositions.

Nowhere is this more apparent than at reception, where a blob-like, bubblegum-pink desk pops against gleaming metallic surfaces. Nearby, a sweeping curved staircase is wrapped in cream-and-black flecked carpeting that extends across its balustrades and onto the surrounding floor, transforming the main circulation space into an almost surreal soft landscape. Oversized, porthole-like windows framing glimpses of the indoor pool further animate the journey through the club, while elsewhere stainless steel, terrazzo and cork give the scheme a tactile richness that offsets its graphic exuberance.

  • Rows of black treadmills line the Ken Club’s cardio area, set against a pink floor and ceiling glow that softens the otherwise utilitarian equipment. Mirrored walls multiply the space, while perforated metal screens and elongated black light fittings reinforce the club’s sleek, industrial-meets-playful material language.

    Photography by Ludovic Balay.

  • A quieter studio within the Ken Club is defined by timber flooring, mirrored walls and large stainless-steel volumes that catch warm natural light. Minimal black mats and wooden blocks keep the space visually restrained, while suspended linear lights and wall-mounted speakers introduce a sharper, contemporary edge.

    Photography by Ludovic Balay.

  • The open training floor is washed in cotton-candy pink, offset by black gym equipment, mirrored walls and perforated metallic partitions. Suspended linear lights and reflective surfaces heighten the graphic effect, while the restrained equipment palette allows the colour treatment to define the room’s bold, retro-futurist identity.

    Photography by Ludovic Balay.

Colour heightens this sense of play. Malabar pink, a nod to the cult French Malabar bubblegum, washes over the open training floor and athletic studio, while deep blue lends the cycling studio a nightclub-like ambience, amplified by LED lines tracing the walls and ceiling. The same irreverent spirit extends to the locker rooms, where conventional colour coding is deliberately inverted: pink is reserved for the men’s changing room, while blue defines the women’s. Contrasting green or yellow baseboards, metal lockers with angled geometric panelling and sculptural benches add to their retro-futurist theatricality.

  • The athletic studio pairs black boxing bags and training rigs with a blush-pink floor and softly tinted ceiling, creating a striking contrast between toughness and colour. Integrated shelving displays kettlebells and medicine balls, while mirrors expand the room and intensify its graphic, high-energy composition.

    Photography by Ludovic Balay.

  • The cycling studio shifts into a darker, nightclub-like register, with rows of stationary bikes set against deep blue walls and ceiling. Continuous LED lines trace a series of nested rectangular frames around the room, amplifying depth and giving the space an immersive, high-energy atmosphere.

    Photography by Ludovic Balay.

In the women’s locker room, grey metal lockers with angled geometric panels are set against cork walls and a powder-blue envelope, while a glossy sculptural silver bench anchors the space. Acid-green baseboards and black linear lighting sharpen the composition, reinforcing the scheme’s playful take on athletic interiors.

Photography by Ludovic Balay.

The men’s locker room reverses conventional colour coding with a pink ceiling, while dark metal lockers, cork-lined walls and a sculptural silver bench create a theatrical setting. A freestanding illuminated mirror screen adds another graphic layer, framed by stainless-steel poles and yellow skirting.

Photography by Ludovic Balay.

  • A grooming area in the women’s locker room combines cork-clad walls, illuminated vertical mirrors and slim stainless-steel furniture beneath a cool blue ceiling. Tubular metal frames and suspended linear lights give the space a crisp, retro-futurist character, softened by pale blue counters and white upholstered stools.

    Photography by Ludovic Balay.

  • A curved wash area in the Ken Club’s locker room pairs a powder-blue countertop with brushed metal walls, exposed stainless-steel basins and pipework. Three illuminated mirrors tilt slightly forward beneath a large circular ceiling light, giving the space a playful, almost spaceship-like character.

    Photography by Ludovic Balay.

  • A central wash station in the men’s locker room pairs a butter-yellow countertop with exposed stainless-steel basins and pipework. Cork walls, black doors and suspended linear lights are washed in pink overhead, creating an unexpectedly playful palette within the otherwise utilitarian setting.

    Photography by Ludovic Balay.

The new lounge patio, designed by architect Denis Valode, is enclosed by a soaring glazed structure with exposed white steel framing. A serpentine upholstered bench anchors the timber-floored space, joined by lightweight metal seating and a sculptural white armchair, while daylight and surrounding greenery lend the room an airy, almost conservatory-like atmosphere.

Photography by Ludovic Balay.

Against these more immersive spaces, the new glass-enclosed lounge patio, designed by architect Denis Valode, provides a calmer interlude. Beneath its exposed white structure, greenery and daylight surround sinuous seating, while the adjacent solarium garden extends the club outdoors.

The renovation also broadens the club’s hospitality dimension with Dagim, a new restaurant by Michelin-starred chef Assaf Granit with a garden terrace facing the Eiffel Tower, reinforcing the idea that the Ken Club is somewhere to spend time rather than simply work out. “This is not the end of a chapter,” Benzaquen says. “It is a story that continues.” After four decades, the club’s latest incarnation suggests that continuity need not mean standing still.

The Ken Club’s solarium garden offers a quiet outdoor counterpoint to the more theatrical interiors. Two cream sun loungers sit among dense planting and mature trees, with the club’s low glazed structure behind and the Eiffel Tower appearing in the distance above the surrounding rooftops.

Photography by Ludovic Balay.

A broad view of the Ken Club’s upholstered staircase reveals its dialogue with the glass-enclosed patio above. Flecked cream surfaces flow continuously across steps, balustrades and landings, while circular roof openings and abundant planting reinforce the project’s recurring interplay of rounded forms, pattern and daylight.

Photography by Ludovic Balay.