Game of Thrones supervising art director Paul Ghirardani discusses his work on the show

As the supervising art director on Game of Thrones since season 4, it’s Paul Ghirardani’s job to bring the worlds of Westeros and Essos to life. “What you see on screen is what we create,” he said in an interview with Portuguese website SAPO. “So the fictional architecture is something that we’ve imagined, we’ve researched, we’ve designed, we’ve drawn — so we bring that to the screen. It’s the world in which the characters inhabit, so we have to think very carefully about how the characters will live in Meereen, how the characters will live in Braavos, how they will live at Hardhome.”

Watch the full interview below:

Ghirardani spends a good chunk of time discussing the design of the House of Black and White, from the front doors to the depths below.

"We knew we needed temple architecture. We knew it had to sort of coexist with water, because Braavos is a water city…It kind of suggested temples in India, particularly in a town called Varanasi, where there are temples lining the banks of the Ganges with steps leading up to them, so that was quite a good reference point. Once you find those key references, you feel safe."

Varanasi

The Hall of Faces, being very otherworldly, posed an especial challenge. They made about 600 prosthetic faces for set — as has mentioned before, many were modeled after writers and producers. Unfortunately, Ghirardani himself didn’t make the cut. “I think if you got your face in the House of Black and White, you were made,” he said.

"The size of the thing was huge, but time, money, and space means that we can only build so much, so we built as big as we can and then visual effects will take it on from there and they’ll send the thing rocketing into the sky."

As for his favorite places, he picked Daenerys’ apartments in Meereen, which were based off a Frank Lloyd Wright house in LA. “Living on the top of an 800-foot pyramid can only be a good thing.”

So can Ghirardani reveal anything about season 7? Of course he didn’t. What kind of show do you think this is? “I can’t possibly comment. In 60 days time, you’ll get to see it yourself.”

However, he did mention that he’d be working with his Game of Thrones “family” again “in a couple of weeks time.” So it sounds like pre-production on season 8 will be starting up soon.