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French-American interior designer Marianne Tiegen. Photo: S2H Communications
Leading a studio founded two decades ago, the French-American designer has built a career on the relationship between spaces and their natural surroundings
Studio profile
French-American interior designer Marianne Tiegen leads a studio based in Switzerland, France and California, handling residential and hospitality projects across Europe and beyond. Named Marianne Tiegen Interiors, her firm holds that every home should reflect the identity of the people who live in it, no matter where in the world that home is located.
The team gathered around fabrics and designs: the listening phase that kicks off every new project. Photo: S2H Communications
Over two decades of work, Tiegen’s team has developed a signature language built on contrasts between styles, eras and materials. Today, the brand counts private clients and hospitality groups among its roster, with projects ranging from urban apartments to mountain chalets.
French-Californian roots
Raised in what she describes as a bohemian family, Tiegen is the daughter of a surfer and designer of iconic Los Angeles homes, and she says she inherited from him a dual fascination with nature and architecture. According to Tiegen, that combined influence shaped what she now calls her firm’s core approach.
Before establishing herself as an interior designer, she lived on boats, in mountain cabins, in city apartments and in seaside bungalows across the United States, United Kingdom and France. Such a range of addresses revealed a common thread, she says: the most memorable places were those in tune with their surroundings, authentic and free of pretense.
Verbier, in the Swiss Alps: a fur-lined armchair with a view of the snow-capped mountains. Photo: S2H Communications
Belonging is a feeling she says she experienced along the California coast as much as in London, Paris and Verbier, the Swiss Alpine ski resort. According to Tiegen, that same sense of home now guides her firm’s professional practice.
A discovery in London
Roughly 20 years ago, Tiegen came across Petersham Nurseries, a London space blending gardening, art and craftsmanship. A former florist, she saw in it a synthesis of what she had already been seeking in her own path. At the time, she was working as an antiques, objects and furniture sourcing consultant for major brands, concept stores and hotels, while collaborating closely with Francesco Boglione, the nursery’s owner.
By her own account, Boglione would introduce her to clients as the heart and soul of Petersham Nurseries. Praise from him led some of those clients to hire her to renovate their own homes, a shift that gave rise to her current firm.
Industrial interior in London: spherical chandeliers and a gallery wall of black-and-white photographs. Photo: S2H Communications
An apartment on Place des Vosges, a historic square in central Paris, became the first major project Tiegen signed as an independent professional. Its renovation drew international attention and carried the studio’s name beyond France.
Working method
Nearly 20 years later, the team has grown and the challenges have diversified, but its founder says the essence of the method hasn’t changed. Every commission begins with a listening phase, in which the team works to understand clients’ lifestyles and aspirations before proposing any aesthetic solution.
According to Tiegen, conversations with homeowners serve as a compass for the rest of the creative process. Without that groundwork, she says, the risk is delivering generic spaces disconnected from the daily lives of the people who will inhabit them.
Outdoors, reference books and fabric swatches guide the choices for each project. Photo: S2H Communications
Unlike firms that adopt a fixed visual signature and repeat the same formula from project to project, Marianne Tiegen Interiors rejects any systematic approach. Its team holds that every home should respond to the local culture and geography surrounding it, rather than to a predefined catalog of references.
A network of craftspeople
Much of the studio’s identity comes from long-term relationships with collaborators around the world. Across decades of travel, the team has built a network of master artisans specializing in raw, noble materials that gain texture and character over time.
No industrial material, according to the founder, could reproduce the sensory quality these craftspeople bring to a space. To her, they are the heart of every project bearing the firm’s signature.
Curiosity and discovery function as a constant driver for the team, Tiegen says. Hunting for antiques, rare finds and singular works of art is, in her words, a genuine treasure hunt, one that gives each residence its own personality.
Marianne Tiegen at a fabric and haberdashery store: long-standing partnerships with master artisans. Photo: S2H Communications
Such a search for objects with history also aligns with a broader commitment to sustainability at the studio. Preserving, rescuing and restoring old furniture and materials, the team says, is part of a wider effort against waste.
A concept of tension
Notable in the founder’s description of her practice is her use of the word tension as its central aesthetic principle. Oversized aged-linen curtains coexist, in her projects, with modernist-lined sofas, while 1970s American lamps converse with handcrafted pieces worn by time.
Wild plants gathered in mountain regions also appear alongside contemporary artworks in spaces designed by her team. Distinct historical periods coexist deliberately within the same room, according to the philosophy Tiegen champions.
Chalet bedroom: iron chandelier, pink shag rug, and distressed wood flooring. Photo: S2H Communications
Simplicity and sophistication, the understated and the extravagant, old and new form pairs of opposites that together, Tiegen says, create the space a resident needs to feel at ease. Tension between contrasting elements, rather than predictable harmony, is what she describes as the studio’s true signature.
Well-being as a goal
Recurring in the team’s philosophy is the idea of well-being, tied to a combination of art and nature that Tiegen says can positively affect the psychological comfort of the people who live in these spaces. Such a belief guides much of the firm’s decision-making.
A room decorated in dark tones, with long curtains, foliage, and flowers: sensory comfort as the project’s goal. Photo: S2H Communications
Grounded in that conviction, the team avoids purely decorative solutions and prioritizes elements that build a sensory connection with residents. Textures, scents and natural materials appear frequently throughout the process.
Market context
Career paths like Tiegen’s, which blend informal training, international experience and long-term relationships with artisans, have gained growing traction in the luxury interior design world, a field traditionally dominated by architecture firms with conventional academic backgrounds.
Marianne Tiegen in an antique warehouse: hunting for one-of-a-kind pieces is part of the process.Photo: S2H Communications
Industry professionals note that a growing appreciation for one-of-a-kind pieces, local craftsmanship and personal narrative behind each project reflects a broader consumer shift toward authenticity, in contrast to standardized, mass-produced environments.
Two decades later
Dedication is the word Tiegen chooses to sum up why her clients say they feel an immediate sense of belonging in the spaces her studio delivers. According to her, it’s that handcrafted care, not a market formula, that explains client loyalty over time.
Lisbon: a white room with terracotta-colored cushions and a bamboo armchair. Photo: S2H Communications
Twenty years after the informal start of her career, her firm’s day-to-day work has grown in scale but kept the same spirit that once led a young Tiegen to turn the Place des Vosges apartment, mentioned earlier in this piece, into her first internationally recognized project.
Guéthary, on the French Basque coast: a convex mirror in a wooden niche and a herringbone floor. Photo: S2H Communications
Website: mariannetiegen.com
Instagram: @mariannetiegen
