Bernard Cassia (1936-2022)
Co-Founder

Bernard Cassia attended the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts in Beirut from 1956 to 1957 and received his BA in Architecture and Interior Design from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma in 1960.

During his studies, Bernard Cassia’s interest in the plastic arts earned him recognition at the Fiera di Via Margutta exhibition held in Rome in 1959.

After completing a one-year internship at Peter Winkle Design Studio in Munich in 1961, Cassia returned to Beirut to establish his own studio whilst maintaining his position as visiting professor and collaborator of celebrated interior designer Bruno Longhini in Roma until 1963. Bernard Cassia held faculty positions at the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts in Beirut from 1964 to 1970 teaching interior design and the plastic arts in parallel with his own practice. In 1965, he co-founded CASSIA with his brother Lucien and directed the firms’ interior design project up until his retirement in 2010.

Drawing inspiration from his European exposure, the projects Bernard Cassia designed were imbued with classical proportions and harmony, always attempting to personalise details and forms to reflect the nature of the project and its clients. Bernard Cassia’s studios were staffed with dedicated designers who shared his perception of spaces and interior experiences as the social expression of a client’s vision and an artistic extension of his formative years. For almost forty years, Bernard Cassia and his team of dedicated designers have created original interior solutions reflecting clients’ visions and his own applied arts background.

Examples of his project experience as Principal Interior Designer include: City Stars Heliopolis (Cairo), Holiday Center & Crowne Plaza Hotel (Dubai), Olympia Hotel (Port Harcourt Nigeria), Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Al Nahayan Palace (Abu Dhabi), Sofitel (Seoul), Novotel Dead Sea (Jordan), Benabola Hotel Resort (Puerto Banus), Ummayad Center (Damascus), Minhal Holiday Inn (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), Intercontinental Heliopolis and the Crowne Plaza Heliopolis (Cairo).