December 4, 2021

Didier Ghislain, 1958 to 2021 – An emotional conduit to the soul, and a friend

I am having a VERY difficult time writing this both from a professional and personal perspective.  The exceptional Didier Ghislain, a friend, colleague and one of the most cultured yet hysterically animated and joyous people I have had the privilege to know passed away last Sunday and his memorial service was today, in Paris.

Due to the pandemic I had not seen Didier in over three years but thanks to texting and Facebook we kept in contact as one does today with faraway friends. But this distance didn’t matter as his passing was not only a great loss for the world community of design but a blow for me and those who truly got to know him as a friend.

We met like many of my friends in Paris, thru Laurent Queige who at the time was the Director of Tourism for the City of Paris.  Laurent threw us together during the last night of one of my visits.  This one as Laurent’s guest to attend the inaugural launch events of his major citywide project, Paris Capitale de la Création including the first Maison et Objet design show.

And by threw us together I mean literally, on the dance floor of GIBUS nightclub introducing me to Didier and his close friend and colleague architect Tany Bahadori, yelling over the electronic dance beat in French to do the hand off… but truly it was because Laurent had tired of translating conversations for me, especially in a place where I couldn’t hear much less understand what anyone was saying anyway.

Once we shared who each of us were and what we did and that Tany’s sister Sabrina lived in Chicago, we went crazy jumping around comparing notes and determining we had many other mutual Parisian friends. After yelling over the music for a while we found a quiet spot to talk and the rest is history.

From Didier and Tany flying in to Chicago as my guest critique reviewers in the studio classes I taught at Harrington, to our many visits, parties and dinners in both cities over the years, they imbedded themselves socially into my studio and friends, and a long term relationship was established until each of their passings.

Didier was 63 years old, and 41 years in practice first as an architect, then…well…as some would incorrectly label him, an architectural illustrator or renderer.

But professionally, and for those of us truly familiar with his work, energy and process, he was an architectural interpreter; a three dimensional whisperer; or as I was told once by a mutual friend during a dinner with a group of friends in Paris, Didier was an emotional conduit to the architect’s soul.

 

Of course Didier overheard us and burst out laughing, more loudly than I generally do which for anyone who knows me understands how loud that is, and possibly why he and I got along.  He then started making loud buzzing sounds and acting like he was being electrocuted by touching the table in front of us, much to the dismay of the French diners around us.

His energy was infectious as his obvious love of life, expressed in everything he did in that creative way that only Didier could express.

 

At one point while spending time with Didier and Tany in his studio on Rue des Halles, he explained to me his telling creative process. Didier told me he would have conversations and sketch sessions with the lead design architect about their high level vision, feel, and imaginations very early in their design ideation process; that spark they were looking to convey.  Sometimes he was only given a plan and elevation drawings, and possibly just notations or a list of possible materials, and sometimes even only sketchy notes…and was told to run with it.

 

 

And this was his calling, and why he was providing intellectual interpretations for the likes of Jean Nouvel, Dominique Perrault, and Frank Gehry. He had the uncanny ability to extrapolate their ideas, working hand in hand with the architect one on one to create conceptual artistic interpretations of their thoughts to mirror back at them for adjustments until their visions were realized, influencing the project drawings and design development itself.

Once the architect felt their vision within Didier’s work these ideations were used for client presentations, to sell concepts in competitions or to imbed as the emotional context of an environmental experience into the announcements of projects.

These were pieces of art, driven by an individual that was an expert in architecture, art history, drawing and painting, photography, and yes, even sometimes adding digital rendering techniques, but only as necessary, as in the end they were ALWAYS collages of multilayered applications and executed by hand.

One can see the echoes of classical renaissance perspective drawing techniques combined with impressionist abstract painting and pastels and the additives of oddly interspersed photographic inlays…they were never intended to be photorealistic or exact and why should they?

 

To create the true feel and emotion of an occupied environment, Didier infused his representations with a kind of abstracted dream state that provided the feeling of an intent without the distracting, soulless super realistic digital representation that saturates the design industry today. We see the final shared vision as one sees an image in the imagination of the mind.

This is the back cover statement from his 2007 monograph Perspectives, Didier Ghislain:

“An architect by training, Didier Ghislain is a perspectivist. His drawings give life to the projects of the greatest architects, from Jean Nouvel to Frank Gehry. Working for Jean Nouvel for eighteen years, he produced illustrations for Kansai Airport in Japan, the Endless Tower project in La Défense, and the Quai Branly museum in Paris. For the profession of perspectivist, 3D is generally used to the detriment of manual work, as Didier Ghislain still practices. His technique consists of a succession of operations: a first drawing on the layer, then an inversion on a dark background which gives the sketch a crystalline appearance, then the careful intervention of color in pencil, pastel or with collages.”

 

With his passing I am unsure how long his portfolio will remain online, but if one wants  to experience the visual version of French chocolatier Jacques Genin’s chocolate samplers, go to Didier’s modest website of his impressive collection of work here: http://www.didierghislainperspectives.com/

Know how much we will miss you being here with us on earth Didier, and Tany.  I assume you are back together…laughing, dancing and possibly making believe you are electrocuting conduits. Thank you for your friendship and everything you brought to my life and thinking. You have electrified the imaginations of architects, designers and friends around the world.