Joseph Dirand: Homage to Modernism

Paris-based architect Joseph Dirand’s first limited-edition furniture collection, entitled ‘Modernist,’ follows traces of Dirand’s work as an architect designing interiors, scenographies, commercial spaces and hotels, but also furniture for the projects. The collection expresses his desire to continue in the long tradition of modernity, which favours ‘logic, balance and purity,’ as defined by the French Union of Modern Arts in 1930. His quest for modernism stems from modernist architecture, and the passion can also be seen in his long-term collecting of furniture from the 1920s to 1950s.

Dirand approaches his own furniture designs as pieces of architecture, and considers them as scaled-down architectural projects in a domestic space. His structural thinking blends architecture and design into functional artworks. For him, the pieces are “a tactile truth without discourse of intellectual alibis.”

The collection consists of nine pieces of limited edition furniture made of wood, stone and metal: a desk and a table, a cabinet, coffee tables, a lamp, a console table and a column draw inspiration from their materials, but also from masters of modernism, such as architect Alvar Aalto’s thinking and forms. •

Joseph Dirand’s exhibition ‘Modernist’ at Galerie Pierre Marie Giraud in Brussels, Belgium, on 13 November–12 December 2015.