Alexandre de Betak launched his modular sofa, ‘Le Takbe’, during NYC x Design, in collaboration with Paris gallery Pierre Augustin Rose's New York space in SoHo.
Over the past three decades, under the banner of his Paris-based creative agency Bureau Betak, de Betak built a global reputation for masterminding some of fashion’s most spectacular shows – from Dior’s delphinium-covered hill in the Louvre’s courtyard and the ethereal Berluti show, where shoes floated through the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, lifted by oversized white balloons, to Saint Laurent’s glittering spectacles beneath the Eiffel Tower. After founding the company in 1990, he produced more than 1,500 runway shows, installations and events that blurred the boundaries between fashion, architecture and art.
In 2023, de Betak opted to take a step back from the company to concentrate on his personal dreams as a designer and artist, creating ‘spaces of radical stillness where the viewer is not spectator but subject’. Working out of a mews studio in London’s Marylebone, his obsession with the tension between ancient and contemporary, low-tech and high-tech, remains constant. Recent works include a large-scale light installation coinciding with Frieze London 2025, and Chashitsu Hikari Schürli, a site-specific light sculpture unveiled during Gstaad Art Week in February 2026.
Alexandre De Betak’s sofa for Pierre Augustin Rose
The origins of the 'Le Takbe' modular sofa are deeply personal for de Betak, who first designed it for his own homes around the world, conceiving it for an informal way of living – for lounging, gathering, playing, and meditating, without hierarchy or prescription.
It is formed of a low platform, on which cushions can be freely arranged and rearranged, adapting to the rhythms of daily life. This first edition with Pierre Augustin Rose introduces removable backrests, offering a more structured seating configuration while preserving the openness of the original. The design is available in two sizes – a conventional rectangular sofa or a more expansive square shape – and two fabrications, either wool or linen, and it can be configured as a daybed, sofa, or something in between; a small landscape within a room, shaped by whoever inhabits it.
Founded by Pierre Bénard and Augustin Deleuze, who were later joined by Nina Rose, Pierre Augustin Rose draws from the legacy of 20th-century masters while remaining resolutely anchored in the present. Their work reflects a refined balance between memory and invention, with form, proportion and materiality approached with precision and restraint. Rooted in a passion for singular environments, Pierre Augustin Rose creates collections that are both bold and nuanced, where furniture becomes a vehicle for atmosphere as much as function. At its core lies a clear ambition: to project a distinctly French sensibility into a contemporary, international context.