INTERIORS / ART / ARCHITECTURE / TRAVEL ISSUE 20 WANDERLUST / Profle WANDERLUST / Profle Today, Denniston is actively working on 40 hotel projects and developments, including masterplanning a project of 100 square kilometres north of California’s Napa Valley that will have Exquisite Detail a polo feld, hotels and vineyards, the Mandarin Oriental Bali, Four Seasons properties in Tokyo and Bangkok, the new Oberoi in Mumbai and the frst Aman in New York. Gathy believes that in great hotels there should be no defnition between the interior and landscape, that they should be seamless, a t’s ridiculous, I tell you, ridiculous how have to give the client a product they can Text word he often repeats. (‘If I ever write a book, much I fy!’ says Jean-Michel Gathy, seated make money from — it has to make sense Sanjay Surana it’ll be called Seamless,’ he quips). He begins ‘Iin a green velvet, high-backed armchair during operationally, fnancially and commercially, each project with the bed and works outward, lunch at the Shangri-La Kuala Lumpur. ‘Twice but it still has to have 500 windows and look and while every property varies in size, scope around the world every month, four times good. A museum or a library doesn’t have to and feel, they all need what he calls ‘a soul’. more than long-haul pilots.’ A Belgian who’s make sense in such a detailed way.’ Tey also typically feature a strong water been based in Asia for almost four decades, the element. ‘In a resort, the daytime focus is to gregarious and engrossing Gathy is in demand Gathy’s fascination with hospitality and this Facing page, bottom look out, but at night the sea and the mountain left across the globe as a hospitality designer and jigsaw of a planet emerged at the tender age Renowned are black holes. You see nothing.’ Light and the creative powerhouse behind projects like of seven, when he’d spend the milk money his Malaysia-based water add refection and drama to both resorts the St. Regis Lhasa Resort in Tibet, Cheval parents gave him on maps, studying their every hospitality designer and city hotels, can be peaceful or active, and Jean-Michel Gathy Blanc Randheli in the Maldives, Chedi detail. ‘I’d put a pillow under the door frame so is wholly invested can help to mask and dilute sound. Andermatt in Switzerland, Aman Venice and my parents wouldn’t see my light on. By the in every project the iconic rooftop and pool at Singapore’s time I was nine years old I knew a hundred and he undertakes, He also identifes the need for a good which is impressive Marina Bay Sands. sixty countries by heart,’ he says, eyes closed considering he’s shower and perfect acoustic performance, or and hands moving in the air like an illusionist, behind some of the soundproofng, in a room. And the greatest As principal of Denniston, the design practice plotting the outlines of India, Pakistan, world’s top luxury mistake? Having too many electronic controls. hotels, with dozens he founded in 1983, with four ofces worldwide Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq on an imaginary more underway ‘If you need a doctorate in mathematics to and clients that include tycoons and royalty, board. When his parents eventually discovered Image by Sanjay switch of the lights, the design is useless.’ Gathy maintains a personal interest in every his secret, they gave him the responsibility of Surana With the hands-on designer in charge, at least project, hence his relentless routine. While he planning family holidays; this task he willingly Facing page, top and a hotelier and guest can be assured that such a does turn down work regularly, he says, when accepted, poring over guide books and maps, bottom right misstep would never happen. Central to Gathy’s he’s involved, ‘I’m very hands-on — I design and learning about architecture and the castles approach is everything. From the very frst site visit of a and gardens they’d visit. Te aesthetics and the sense of project I’m there and involved at each stage creativity of those trips stuck with him, and in seamlessness imbued in each of along the way. I am totally passionate about a sense shaped him. In fact, when asked what his designs. The and addicted to what I do.’ he’d like to claim to have designed, most of the Chedi Muscat (top answers are ancient temples — in Myanmar, right) is one such example, where the Despite his and his contemporary hotel Luxor, Belize and more besides. distinction between architects’ incredible capabilities and creativity, architecture and Gathy does feel that they are unsung heroes Gathy studied architecture in Belgium and interior is almost non-existent. within the industry. ‘We’re like the midfelders then worked in the architecture ofce at the Similarly, calm in soccer or 1500-metre runners in the University of Liège before moving to Asia. It permeates the living Olympics — we’re the engines. We work was while living in Hong Kong and designing areas of the Cheval Blanc Randheli, miracles with impossible programmes and retail spaces, ofces and hundreds of bank Maldives (bottom budgets. What we do isn’t just glamour, it’s branches that he met Hans Jenni, a hotel right) via the fow difcult. Hotels are businesses — nobody executive who went on to open ghm Hotels between interior and exterior develops a hotel for pleasure. We need to be with Adrian Zecha, two people that Gathy Images courtesy of creative and study the habits, cultures and identifes as his mentors, and who gave him Jean-Michel Gathy/ rituals of the country we’re designing in. We some of his earliest hotel commissions. Denniston 70 71.