A while ago, the son of renown photographer Jacques Dirand, Joseph Dirand, did an interview with “Architectural Digest” showing his brand new 2,600-square-foot space, which is located on the Right Bank in Paris, France. He moved there because he, his wife and his 2 children had a baby on the way and they wanted more space. Dirand said: “Design for me must always serve its function—a space well studied delivering a certain quality of life.” Clearly, stone is Dirand’s preferred material.
Walls, flat surfaces, baths are all in soft-tone stone or marble—often cut from massive blocks he purchased years ago and stored, “waiting for the right moment.” The three majestic Massangis limestone-trimmed arches down the left side of the entrance hall are there to create “a mini-palazzo,” with edges that were hand-rounded by masons “to capture the light, and to create a continuous line, like a ribbon that carries on.” In the kitchen, which is created by Obumex, it is located a vanilla-hued island carved from a hunk of breccia stazzema marble he purchased directly from the quarry and saved for five years.
The WC is walled with breccia verde marble he picked up in Italy. The master bath is enrobed with paonazzo marble and he even employs mineral materials for key furnishings, such as the white travertine dining table and the estremoz coffee table. Through a neoclassical limestone pedimented doorway at the end of the entrance hall—“very 17th-century Italian,” he pointed out—is the family’s private quarters. The overall palette is “natural tints,” such as the Versailles parquet and walls and furniture in off-whites, pale greens, and the lightest of grays—a neutral canvas devised to set off his extensive modern, abstract, and Arte Povera art collection.