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For his residential interiors, Rosenthal created compositions that balance an interplay between the architectural shell, the built-in, and the freestanding. Rosenthal was among the first modernists to adapt this traditional Bourgeois approach - especially in Germany - and accounted for his widespread popularity in the Parisian design press of the time. Rosenthal approached the project of the interior as a holistic design problem, subordinating all of the furnishings to the design idea derived from the architecture of the room - whether it was in one of his freestanding villas where he controlled all the design or in an apartment renovation where he responded to found conditions. Among his curious ideas was to allow materials from furniture extend to walls and floors.