MEETING…THIERRY DESPONT


THIS PAGE: Bespoke wardrobes are inspired by vintage malletier pieces, with maple cabinets boasting cleverly designed compartments and storage wrapped in faux leather with stitched leather handles


“Our romantic idea of travel harks back to finely crafted trunks by Louis Vuitton, Goyard and Lancel which resembled furniture pieces.”


studies at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts and we’d spend hours training with live models or plaster casts. Sadly this is a skill that has largely disappeared from modern architectural education.” Indeed, so deep is his commitment that colleagues are issued a weekly invite to a drawing class at his Tribeca studio. Despont is also established as an artist in his own right with a series of solo exhibitions of paintings, drawings and tapestries since 1992. His next major showing is during the 2011 Venice Biennale at the Saint Apollonia Convent. Having graduated as an architect in 1972,


the young Despont left Paris to gain a MA in Urban Design, City Planning from Harvard University. He was employed by British architects Llewelyn Davies in 1976, working on large-scale city schemes in Iran before moving to the New York office to contribute to the design of the Museum of Modern Art’s new tower. “This is when I first encountered the city’s various planning authorities – the major players,” recalls Despont. “While I was discovering what it was like to be part of a big team with all the inherent commercial constraints, I didn’t feel this was the best way to express my individuality or my desire to practise architecture as an art.”


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So Despont began to freelance on small residential projects, a move that allowed him to blur the demarcation between architecture and interior design. Soon modest homes became large homes and he established his own firm in 1980 specialising in the provision of turnkey residential solutions. A roster of illustrious clients followed, including Bill Gates and Calvin Klein. “Creating a home means giving shape to your client’s dreams and recapturing their memories,” he explains. “In the past such a specialism would have limited you to one country but now we build homes in different locations and with different materials around the world. Each time you expand your architectural vocabulary and experience.” As for New York, Despont says it would be inconceivable not to be based here, in an environment that allows him to follow a work ethic akin to “training for the Olympics”. While he remains understandably discreet about his clients’ homes, Despont has enjoyed the kudos of working on high-profile public projects over the past 25 years, including the Centennial Restoration of the Statue of Liberty as Associate Architect, and the design of galleries at the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Stepping into commercial territory, he has also designed Ralph Lauren’s Bond


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