Contemporary designer Andrée Putman (born in 1925), France's "ambassadrice du style" is honored at Paris' Hotel de Ville with a major exhibition (until Feb. 26) looking back over her impressive career spanning more than four decades. The retrospective, curated by her daughter Olivia, includes examples of Putman's work ranging from her signature checker board designs created for the New York Morgans Hotel to Concorde revamps for Air France to her “Milky Way” grand piano designed for piano manufacturer Pleyel.

Putman's eclectic projects have ranged from the Fine Arts Museum of Rouen to movie sets for Peter Greenaway to a silverware and jewelry collection with Christofle, a champagne cooler for Veuve Clicquot and a luxury steamer bag for Louis Vuitton.
As an interior designer, Putman recently unveiled the Blue Spa at Bayerischer Hof hotel in Munich, the Guerlain flagship store on the Champs-Elysées and stores for Anne Fontaine in Tokyo, Paris and New York. Most recently, she designed a 31 floor apartment skyscraper in Hong Kong, appropriately named The Putman. She has described her most successful projects as, "the perfect balance between discipline and revolt."

Andrée Putman: Ambassadrice du style until Feb. 26, 2011 at the Hôtel de Ville, 5 Rue de Lobau, 75004 Paris. Free admission.  Open from 10 am to 7 pm daily except Sundays and public holidays.
Metro: Hôtel de Ville (Lines 1 & 11)