RBC Group: A Specialist In Contemporary Furniture

Long presented as a specialist in the distribution of contemporary furniture, the RBC Group is today much more than a simple distributor: a multidisciplinary company for the dissemination and support of development projects in the private, public, or tertiary space. Family-owned and independent, the RBC Group is all at the same time, an ardent defender of a contemporary way of life, a fine connoisseur of contemporary and yesterday’s design furniture, a pioneer in its approach of complementarity between architecture and design, led by the I want to share this passion with the general public, listening to a young generation who wants affordable design, expert partner of architects for the development of ambitious projects.

Franck Argentin, the CEO of the RBC group, was not content to take up the father’s torch 35 years ago: he decided to chart his own course. At only 23 years old, full of desire and audacity, he opened his first showroom in Nîmes and asked Philippe Starck, already internationally recognized, to create the layout. A small revolution that remains today, the hallmark of RBC for all of its showrooms. Unconditional of contemporary design, and passionate about architecture, this networker likes to provoke meetings between professionals but also with the general public, whom he wants to initiate and educate by organizing exhibitions and conferences.

Visionary, and intuitive, Franck Argentin has surrounded himself with collaborators who share his passions to imagine new ways of doing things, innovate in the offer, to test new formulas. Life without movement, without challenge, and above all without friends, would not be life.

Director of the RBC Group since 2014, Tristan Lohner participates in the group’s strategy alongside Franck Argentin. This 40-year-old trained as a cabinetmaker (Brevet des Métiers d’Arts), completed by the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, where he studied product design with Jean-Marie Massaud. He joined the RBC group in 1999 where he worked on numerous global development projects for residential and high-end hotels. From 2010, he worked with Franck Argentin on the project for the RBC Montpellier showroom, of which he took the reins when it opened in 2012.

Director of the RBC group since 2014, Francois Basilien participates in the Group’s strategy alongside Franck Argentin. The designer graduated from ENSCI Les Ateliers in 1991, he made his debut as an interior designer and decorator for TV production. It is by taking the direction of Forum Diffusion in Paris, a mythical showroom that he animates and scenography with his great passion for design and designers, that he forges strong and lasting links with architects, interior designers and a network of prestigious clients. He took over the management of RBC Lyon when it opened in 2010. Under his leadership, the “Cube Orange” showroom quickly took on an essential place in the Rhône-Alpes landscape and well beyond.

To carry out all the projects head-on, Francois Basilien knew how to surround himself with a multidisciplinary team that responds with as much pleasure to the development of a chalet or a villa, as to that of a student residence, or the Grand Stade de Lyon with the studio Naco. After accompanying the opening of RBC Paris, François Basilien devoted himself more particularly to the launch of the new Poliform by RBC space, place Bellecour in Lyon.