Inside Architect Joseph Dirand's Creative Universe

[Learn more](https://www.fourseasons.com/magazine/from-the-magazine/extraordinary-by-design-architect-joseph-dirands-creative-universe/)


The stylish architect behind the reimagined Surf Club opens up about what inspires him and his next Four Seasons project, in Gstaad.

[From The Magazine](https://www.fourseasons.com/magazine/from-the-magazine/)

Joseph Dirand’s style mixes architectural minimalism with luxe materials and dramatic lighting, from his Belle Epoque–inspired interiors for the Parisian hot spot Le Grand Café to his design of boutiques for Balmain and Givenchy. That same sensibility informs the French architect and interior designer’s work for Four Seasons.

Over more than a decade, Joseph Dirand Architecture has renovated a pair of properties with little in common: a 1930s beach club in greater Miami and a Swiss mountain retreat in Gstaad. This is by design. “I love that maximum contrast,” Dirand says. “There is a sense of discovery, and a feeling that I’m not repeating myself.” He looks for hotels that feel rooted to their location, where he can let culture and history shape the architecture and design.

Four Seasons Hotel at the Surf Club

The Park Gstaad, A Four Seasons Hotel

That approach defines his best-known work for the brand, [Four Seasons Hotel at The Surf Club](https://www.fourseasons.com/surfside/), in Surfside, Florida, where his Art Deco–meets–mid-century interiors, completed in 2017, perform a high-wire design act, bridging the Mediterranean Revival architecture of the historic clubhouse with the crisp form of Richard Meier’s contemporary tower in glass, concrete, and steel. He has since designed interiors for Four Seasons Seaway at The Surf Club, his first residential project, and a beach villa at The Surf Club.

Next year, Dirand’s interiors for a Swiss ski enclave’s grande dame, originally opened in 1910, will make their debut. [The Park Gstaad, A Four Seasons Hotel](https://www.fourseasons.com/gstaad/), will offer 75 guest rooms and suites; a collection of sophisticated, chalet-inspired Private Residences; indoor and outdoor pools; and a Clinique La Prairie spa.

Dirand recounts in the following passages some of the influences and elements that coalesce into his signature style.

The Park Gstaad, A Four Seasons Hotel

Before designing The Surf Club interiors, Dirand toured Mediterranean Revival structures in Boca Raton and Palm Beach, Florida, including houses by Mizner, one of the era’s leading architects. Studying them helped shape Dirand’s goal: translating that period’s glamour so that it feels up-to-date. “I wanted to take that inspiration and turn it into something that would appeal to a younger crowd—playful and sexy.”

For The Surf Club’s public spaces, Dirand had the property’s 1930s terra-cotta tile reproduced, sourcing it from the Italian company Antica Fornace Carraro. “They are still doing it the same way they used to, everything by hand and dried in the sun,” he says. “The charm is in the imperfections. That kind of craftmanship is a big part of what I do.”