Dirand has built a career on incorporating a quintessentially French style of design into otherwise minimalist interiors. In his hands, minimalism becomes the canvas for a portrait of a few classical elements, such as a parquet floor or a gilded bronze doorknob.
In his elegantly spare Paris apartment, architect-of-the-moment Joseph Dirand introduces sensuous materials and classical elements to sublime effect.
A uniform palette gives the master bedroom its tranquillity; a suede-covered Oscar Niemeyer chair sits in front of an Irving Penn photograph.Credit: Simon Watson.
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Despite the demands of his booming business, Dirand found time to renovate an apartment in Paris’s Seventh Arrondissement, where he now lives with his girlfriend and their two daughters. He wanted to find a home that would reflect the rhythm of his modern life. “We live like parents for one week, then like teenagers the next,” Dirand says.
He settled on a design that is elegant and a little bit louche. “I don’t care about style anymore, in a way I hate style, I hate design,” he says. “It’s about life, and generosity.”
Dirand’s apartment could easily be mistaken for one that is miraculously well-preserved, or painstakingly restored. The parquet de Versailles, the elaborate moldings, the bronze doorknobs are all, as the French would say, “corrects”; but they are not old.
The traditional details of Dirand’s apartment are balanced with modern elements, particularly in the kitchen and the master bathroom, where he uses large slabs of heavily veined marble, a signature of his work.
His home accomplishes that, too, telling the very personal tale of someone who is deeply cultivated, effortlessly cool and, above all, enjoying life. “It’s not a showroom, or something to show clients,” Dirand says with a shrug. “It’s just my home.”
Source: http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/10/the-reinvention-of-minimalism/?_r=0
