From the archive
and designed a product that is modest in scale, but very rich in style,” he says. “Years ago, a wonderful leather goods company from Italy called Bottega Veneta had the slogan, ‘when your own initials are enough’, and I think that sums up the quality of the project – something that doesn’t scream anything, it just makes you feel comfortable, like a custom suit.” Going into a project, Tihany takes steps to immerse himself in the environment in which it will breathe. For his newest field of work, cruise ship design, this has meant spending time on the waves and studying the way guests consume the product. “I never do a project that I can’t live a little while before,” Tihany explains, “Otherwise it’s just not going to come out right; I’m going to miss something.” Sometimes life informs art in other ways for the design star. If Tihany’s wife (and business development director, Marnie Tihany) helps him to appraise a project’s luxury factor, the involvement of his son Bram – a New-York based artist – can provide what he refers to as a “little department of philosophy”. “Most people are very proud of their children, I hope, and I think that when somebody up high was dispensing talent, they dropped a little extra on his head,” Tihany says, “He’s an incredibly creative thinker, and we’ve worked together conceptualising projects in terms of philosophy and ideas, and taking it to the next level.” At the Four Seasons DIFC, this includes the younger
Tihany’s contemporary nod to 1950s automobile art in the hotel’s diner, as well as a locale-inspired photo essay series exploring Dubai’s architecture. As well as rooting a property in its location, the elder Tihany has also routinely displayed his adeptness in painting its history. Renovating the Beverly Hills Hotel for its centennial anniversary in 2014, Tihany looked closely into the property’s past, discovering, for instance, that Elizabeth Taylor spent time there as a child because her father owned an art gallery in the hotel. Here, Tihany employs his skill as a portraitist once again.
“When you walk in there, I want you to feel the history of the place, to imagine Elizabeth Taylor is running through the lobby as a three-year-old child. People that come to these places have some kind of an expectation or a fantasy, and you need to respond to that in a way that is not ‘in your face’, so it’s a surprise, something that you make your own because you think you discovered it, and those are the best memories.” Asked about his own recollections, the projects that over time have most delighted him, Tihany introduces another word: longevity. “We all dream of doing projects that will last forever, projects that become classics with time, gracefully,” he says. While timeless design can’t be planned, he feels, it is achieved when the right ideas, timing and collaboration come together. One of two projects that stand out for him in this way is Aureole Las Vegas
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(opened 1999), the restaurant he designed for Charlie Palmer. Supported by what he calls the city’s “infinite possibilities”, Tihany created his striking four-storey wine tower, where bottles ranked in columns of glass and steel are fetched by high-wire gliding assistants. “And not only is [Aureole] still there, but it’s still as fresh and as relevant as it was the day it was built – and that’s not easy,” Tihany says. “It was really an accurate portrait of a chef, combined with an accurate assessment of what Las Vegas was all about at the time, and still is, and, I think, good contemporary architecture that doesn’t age.”
The second project Tihany mentions is an extremely personal one: Remi. Tihany and his then business partner Francesco Antonucci sold their stake several years ago but, in a culinary scene as changeable as the weather, the restaurant is still open with the original 1987 design. “It was the most difficult thing for me to do, to allow myself to be portrayed by myself,” Tihany says. “They always say that the shoemakers go without shoes, and, actually, I was petrified. But it was really the portrait of two young guys that were in love with the hospitality business and were willing to put their lives on the line to make something that people would appreciate.”
Three decades after that first sitting, in the afterglow of a career designing for the stars of luxury hospitality, I ask what a portrait of the artist might look like today – and whether it’s a task he would take on again. There’s a long pause before Tihany answers: “I’m not sure that I would do it again at this point of my career; I would rather spend my time teaching the younger generation how to do it. “And it’s not because I’m old, or not ambitious – I just think that people who were instrumental or significant in any kind of profession have the responsibility to pass it on. So that will be my next chapter.” ●
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The restored Beverly Hills Hotel, designed by Tihany.
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