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- L'Orient-Le Jour
Renowned interior designer Jean-Louis Mainguy dead at 71
The renowned Franco-Lebanese interior designer and scenographer Jean-Louis Mainguy passed away at the age of 71, the Union of French People Abroad (UFE), of which he was also honorary president, announced Friday.
In a statement, the UFE paid tribute to the memory of an "exceptional, visionary, innovative, generous and humane president," who left "his unique mark on the French and Franco-Lebanese landscape ... His memory will remain forever in our hearts."
The man of many hats, born in Beirut in 1953, founded "Jean-Louis Mainguy interior architecture" in the 1980s after graduating from ALBA (the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts). Over time, he moved into scenography, whether in theater or even cinema. "Creating apartments, villas, banks, offices, and then, for his own pleasure, opening parenthetical moments, brief, for lack of time," he told L'Orient-Le Jour in 2001. In film, he collaborated with Maroun Baghdadi for his film "Little Wars," and in scenography, he worked on "June and the Apostates" by Nadia Tueni.
In 2021, he curated the exhibition "Wounded Art" at the Audi Foundation, which featured "works of art (paintings and sculptures) from private collections that were damaged" by the explosion at Beirut Port on Aug. 4, 2020.
Jean-Louis Mainguy was decorated Knight of Justice in perpetual vows of the Sovereign Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta (religious monk of the order since 2011). He served as director of the School of Decorative Arts and the School of Interior Architecture and Spatial Design at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts – University of Balamand – as well as vice president of the Union of French People Abroad Worldwide (France).
A member of the Ayadina association and the Association for the Protection of Sites and Old Dwellings in Lebanon (Apsad), he sat on the executive committee of the Beiteddine Festival and the committee of the Baalbeck Festival.
"All those who had the privilege of knowing him are witnesses not only to his genius but also to his ethics and deep humanity," the UFE statement said.
