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design interviews with the famous
KARIM RASHID, RASHID HERZOG & DE MUERON, MUERON street artist “PEZ,” “ ADRIAN FRUTIGER, FRUTIGER INGO MAURER, MAURER and PHILLIPE IPE APELOIG
NOVEMBER 2010
Herzog & de Mueron
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Interviews with today’s leading Swiss architects Jacque Herzog & Pierre de Mueron on their most recent projects and views on design
on the cover...
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Check out European graphic designs and posters from French designer Philippe Apeloig
Philippe Apeloig
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Karim Rashid
Find out what inspires multi-faceted designer Karim Rashid
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Ingo Maurer
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Talk with lighting designer Ingo Maurer about his work and views on sustainability in design
What is Adrian’s obsession with design for san serifs?
Adrian Frutiger
NOVEMBER 2O1O
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november 2010
HER ZOG
and
de MEURON MEU
Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron
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JACQUES & PIERRE Herzog and de Meuron first met at the age of seven. Although they did not speak the same language at the time, they played with their legos building all types of things. Each unsure of where they wanted to study, Herzog went to commercial design school then went into biology and chemistry. They both then decided to attend Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. The Swiss architects based in Basel, Switzerland, started their own architecture firm in 1978. They then began to see how closely their ideas and ways matched. Their office has grown to be 120 peolple worldwide. In addition to their headquarters in Basel, they have offices in London, Munich, and San Francisco. Herzog explains, “We work in teams, but the teams are not permanent. We rearrange them as new projects begin. All of the work results from discussions between Christine Binswanger. The work by various
teams may involve many different talents to achieve the best results which is a final product called architecture by Herzog and de Meuron.
“ Jacque’s strengths are my weaknesses, and his are my strengths. I think I am most definitely very good at the middle phase of a project, while Jacque tends to shine at the beginning and end. And no matter what team is working on a project, we visit the team everyday when things are at decision time.”
“A building is a building. It cannot be read like a book; it does not have any credits, subtitles, or labels like a picture in a gallery. In that sense, we are absolutely anti-representational. The strength of our building is the immediate, visceral impact that they have on the visitor.” De Meuron states the love that they both share for working with projects that deal with existing spaces.
“It is exciting for us to deal with existing structures because the attendant constraints demand a very different kind of creative energy. And when you don’t start from scratch, you need specific architectural strategies that are
not primarily motivated by taste or stylistic preferences. Such preferences tend to exclude rather than include something.” They also enjoy collaborations with others, particularly artists, such as Rémy Zaugg, who has been involved in several of their projects “almost like another partner” to use Herzog’s own words.
...a walk inside Herzog and de Meuron’s...
VITRAHAUS
possibly one of 2010’s most favorite buildings
“There are no models for us, no paradigms of great architecture that we worship. Rather, there are moments in buildings—sometimes great, sometimes terrible—that we pay attention to and learn from.”
Q A
Let’s start talking if we may by looking at the fact that It’s significant in a way that being born here and still living here at the intersection of three countries made us let’s say grow up in an area that is very European, also very tight—Switzerland is a very small country— it seemed natural to us to work to work in a context that is multilingual and influenced by different culture and different cultural backgrounds, in so far that it was and still is quite a fruitful context for us to work.
The newest addition to the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, Germany is VitraHaus. Vitra’s Home Collection was in need of its own dedicated space on the Vitra Campus. The exterior design follows the theme of the archetypal house and the theme of stacked volumes.
A little about your working methods—I notice you have model making workshops on site, you carry out experiments here in the garden, tell a little about that ?
Q
Yes, we try to mix media, that is to say we have very hands-on, very archaic methods, like model making, models of all kinds using styrofoam or wood or plastic or metal or whatever and we also have the sophisticated methods like 3D computer generated models or 3D pictures or any digital forms and we try and mix all these methods to come to where we want which is what the project reveals after awhile. Very often we do not know this is where we go, but I think every project has its own potential and hopefully this is revealed itself after awhile, if you have enough patience.
A
Can we talk about how the office is set up, I’ve seen something of the studio here, the projects start here and then move onto the site correct?
Q
We are around 200 people in Basel, and we work on 40-50 projects, which is a lot and so I think we cannot afford to grow further. Pierre and I are involved in every single project, in the design process, every single project, we start every single project and we have a small or medium sized team around us where one partner, one of the five partners Asclan, Stefan, Christine, Robert, Harry, they are working with us on one project—of the partners, they are only involved in three to five projects, whereas Pierre and I need to be in every single one of them. Then we have a group of associate partners as we call them, architects completing the teams.
A
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The architectural concept can be seen here which is the idea of the typical housing style and incorporating stacked volumes
“The material world is what we deal with—we try to understand what matter is. What it means and how we can use it in order to enhance its specific qualities.”
The interiors as can be seen showcase ideas and collections of what your home and space could look like as well.
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The use of open space planning and few walls let the view experience the length of the entire volume.
Q
Jacques finally what does winning the Royal Gold Medal meant to the practice?
A
Of course you can also try to understand where they come from and why they are awarded and in our case of being from a small country as I said at the beginning which has no honors, no prizes, no cultural traditions in some way, it’s fantastic to be awarded in such a country, in England, where this is all of that, there is this tradition, there is this also social component behind that and it’s even more important that to get it in London because this is the city where we have done Tate and will continue to work on Tate and where we really want to do a lot to have an impact on the shape of the city in the 21st century so I think this is a great support for that.
Jacques and Pierre explaining the levels and concept design of the Vitrahaus project.
w w PHILIPPE
who is who is APELOIG draft
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HILIPPE apeloig APELOIG philippe INTERVIEW interview INTERVIEW interview YOU HAVE COMPARED THE WORK OF A GRAPHIC DESIGNER TO THAT OF AN ACTOR, OR A DANCER. HOW IS DESIGNING LIKE ACTING? Graphic design is the interpretation of a message constructed by one group to reach another. The designer’s artistry and skill facilitate that communication, often on a mass scale. In this the graphic designer is similar to an actor playing a role on stage. Both, professionally speaking, must deliver all the memorable experiences and emotionally engage with their audience. I do not think most people expect to encounter personal expression in graphic design. They view it as the art of communication, and as a commercial art.
A
Q and
(Above) Apeloig’s train poster using fragmentation and reflection.
WHAT APPEALS TO YOU SO MUCH ABOUT POSTER DESIGN? First of all, a poster is big, and it’s one image. I consider my posters as I would a painting. What I like in poster design is the quality with which they are printed. Mine are printed in silk-screen, with traditional inks that impart a subtle, velvety quality. A poster gives you a huge space in which to design. It’s an image to give to the street; nobody is ready to look at it, or waiting for it, or needs it. It’s not like when you go to a gallery or museum and you prepare yourself to see something. Here, you don’t prepare yourself for anything, you just need to capture attention, so it’s an interesting challenge. But what I like is the idea of building an image based on typography, based on a combination of shapes.
interview INTERVIEW interview COULD YOU TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT HOW YOUR STUDIO WORKS? Well, first of all, my studio is on a very small scale. People sometimes don’t realize that there aren’t many people to help with the work. It’s not work that I can perform alone, because there’s too much of it. But I truly enjoy working with people around me, young people, being surrounded by them. I feel I can transmit my knowledge to them and not just keep it to myself, that I can share my skill. My assistants and interns come from all over the world. I like them to come, but also to leave. The freshness of the studio dynamic is very important. The longest relationship I have ever built with one individual assistant has been three or four years. That’s just the way it has happened and works best for me.
(Right) Apeloig’s Paris poster designed with using his own typeface
HOW DO YOU SET ABOUT CREATING A NEW DESIGN? When I’m beginning to create work for a client, I’m not sure what I will have to do. So I hesitate, a lot. I look for ideas, for shapes, for interesting new typefaces, and I look at colour. The first thing I do is pay attention. What do they do? Who are they? What do they expect? I start by documenting many things. I look closely at their own environments. I talk to them. Slowly it evolves through images, drawings, doodling, sketches. Then I go on the computer. I print, I cut, I collage. My approach is, in fact, rather traditional, except that the computer is my main tool. At some point, I know that we are getting very close to the final result. To make sure that it’s good, I may then proceed with a printed example, a printing test, to make sure that it really is perfect.
(Above) Apeloig’s posters designed for the Jazz Cha-ta-let.
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of Karim behind the mind
Rashid
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Above: Karim displaying one of his many works of industrial design, his shoes, which he can be seen sporting most of the time. Opposite: Karim’s manifesto which he has named cleverly “Karimanifesto� stating what he feels his design is and how he wants to change the world.
manifesto Today poetic design is based on a plethora of complex criteria: human experience, social behaviors, global, economic and political issues, physical and mental interaction, form,vision, and a rigorous understanding and desire for contemporary culture. Manufacturing is based on another collective group of criteria: capital investment, market share, production ease, dissemination, growth, distribution, maintenance, service, performance, quality, ecological issues and sustainability. The combination of these factors shape our objects, inform our forms, our physical space, visual culture and our contemporary human experience. These quantitative constructs shape business, identity, brand and value. This is the business of beauty. Every business should be completely concerned with beauty - it is after all a collective human need. I believe that we could be living in an entirely different world-one that is full of real contemporary inspiring objects, spaces, places, worlds, spirits and experiences. Design has been the cultural shaper of our world from the start. We have designed systems, cities, and commodities. We have addressed the world’s problems. Now design is not about solving problems, but about a rigorous beautification of our built environments. Design is about the betterment of our lives poetically, aesthetically, experientially, sensorially, and emotionally. My real desire is to see people live in the modus of our time, to participate in the contemporary world, and to release themselves from nostalgia, antiquated traditions, old rituals, kitsch and the meaningless. We should be conscious and attune with this world in this moment. If human nature is to live in the past - to change the world is to change human nature.
Karim Rashid is one of the most prolific designers of his generation. Over 3000 designers in production, over 300 awards and working in over 35 countries attest to Karim’s legend of design. His award winning designs include democratic objects such as the ubiquitous Garbo waste can and Oh Chair for Umbra, interior such as the Morimoto Restaurant, Philadelphia and Semiramis hotel, Athens and exhibitions for Deutsche Bank and Audi. Karim has collaborated with clients to create demographic design for Method and Dirt Devil, furniture for Artemide and Magis, brand identity for Citibank and the car dealership Hyundai, high tech products for LaCie and Samsung, and luxury goods for Veuve Clicquot and Swarovski, to name a few. Karim’s work is featured in 20 permanent collections and he exhibits art in galleries worldwide. Karim is also a perennial winner of the Red Dot award, Chicago Athenaeum Good Design award, I.D. Magazine Annual Design Review, IDSA Industrial Design Excellence award. He holds honorary doctorates from The Ontario College of Art & Design and Corcoran College of Art & Design. Karim is a guest lecturer at many universities and conferences globally dissimilating the importance of design in everyday life. Karim’s work has been featured in magazine and books including Time, Financial Times, NY Times, Esquire, GQ and countless more. In 2009, Rizzoli released Karim’s latest and new interior and architecture designs. Other books include Karim’s guide to living, “Design Your Self” (Harper Collins, 2006), “Digipop,” a digital exploration of computer graphic (Taschen, 2005), compact portfolio published by the Chronicle Books (2004), as well as two monographs titled as Evolution (Univers, 2004) and “I Want to Change the World” (Rizzoli, 2001). In his spare time, Karim’s pluralism flirts with DJing, art and fashion and is determined to creatively touch every aspect of our physical landscape.
Above: Fron concept process sketches to real life product design. Below: Karim showcasing all of his different tattoos from around the world.
a few
questions & answers
Q A
What is the best moment of the day?
Q A
What kind of music do you listen to at the moment?
Five o’clock in the evening. You know why, the sun. I love this time when the sun is going down...so it can be eight o’clock in the summer and five o’clock in the winter.
Ambient things. There is a DJ a like, Terry’s Cafe and Baby Mammoth. I used to be a DJ in the 70’s, and I appreciate that obsession with the most contemporary kind of music you can find.
Q A
What books do you have on your bedside table?
Q
Where do you work on your designs and projects?
A
I work a lot on airplanes. I travel a lot and it is time to be alone. In my office or my home is very hard to be alone.
I have three; Tipping Point, about how one person can effect the world, can make a change, by a brilliant guy, then The Psychology of Everyday Things by Donald Norman, which I used to use a lot when I was teaching, and The Autobiography of Miles Davis, what a story, it’s fantastic.
Q A
Do you discuss your work with architects or other designers?
Q A
Describe your style like a good friend of your’s would.
Yes a lot. My brother Hani Rashid, who is an architect, Ross Lovegrove, Toyo Ito, David Shearer, and Paola Antonelli.
I wrote a little manifest once about what I thought my style was, and called it “sensual minimalism” or “sensualism”, you concentrate on the subject matter of the object rather than on the form of the object, and through that, because there’s not a lot of adornment, it becomes relatively minimal. All the parts are there because they’re integral. I also think my work is fluid, soft, organic, human, that’s why it’s sensual.
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Q A Q A Q A
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Do you work in any other kinds of visual media? I draw a lot. Sketch. Actually when I was in school, I used to be so creative and artistic that my teachers would tell me I’d never make it as an industrial designer, that I was too much of an artist. Do you think this uncertain time helped shape your philosophy and aesthetic, or were those already formed? No, your always forming your aesthetic. Now, in my 40’s, I think I really know why I’m here and what I am doing. Back then I was still trying to figure it out.
In your own home, do you have furniture designed by other people? My house is actually about 85% me. I do own a Phillip Starck lamp from Floss from 1989. I love Gaetano Pesce, I have a couple vases of his. And Ross Lovegrove, he’s a Welsh designer who I respect a lot; my carving knives are by him. There’s a few pieces here and there. In general I tend not to have a lot by other people in design. You’ve written a book, “I Want to Change the World”...? I used that title for three reasons: number one I think every artist and designer always wants to contribute something to culture, and so I admitted it. I decided just to admit it. I’ve always been obsessed with doing this, even as a four year old child. I used to draw pictures of a church with my father, but I always wanted to change something: the windows...secondly I almost consider myself more of an artist than a hard-core industrial designer, because there’s this weird drive internally to do something original in the world. The other definition is because there was this utopian vision that architects in the 20th century had, they only saw the world one way. So in the book there is an article about how we live in a very complex world, and it can never be a utopian singular vision, and I would never want to mandate my vision on everyone else, I’m just contributing to lots of sensibilities.
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A low platform style couch with fabric pattern inspiration from Karm’s personal website and system of icon/symbols.
Front cover feature Karim Rashid’s sleek new design for a minimal feel in bar stool visuals & aesthetic.
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german lighting designs from...
INGO INGOMAURER MAURER
SOME BACKGROUN
SOME BACKGROUND ON
ING
INGO
Ingo Maurer is the son of a fisherman and grew up on the island of Reichenau in Lake of Constance with four siblings. After an apprenticeship as a typesetter, he studied graphic design in Numich, Germany. In 1960, Maurer left Germany for the United States. Once there he worked in New York and San Francisco as a freelance graphic designer. In 1963, he moved back to his home country of Germany, and founded the company Design M. Here they developed and manufactured lamps of Maurer’s own personal design. The company was then later renamed to “Ingo Maurer GmbH.” In 1984 he presented the low-voltage wire system YaYaHo, consisting of two horizontally fixed metal ropes and a series of adjustable lighting elements with halogen bulbs, which became an instant success. The Cartier pour l’Art Comtemporain in 1989, organized and exhibition “Ingo Maurer: Lumiere Hasard Reflexion.” For the exhibition, for the first time Maurer created some lighting objects and installation which were not meant for serial production.
Since 1989, his design and objects have been presented in a series of many exhibitions, including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (1993). In 2002 the Vitra Design Museum organized Ingo Maurer-Light-Reaching for the Moon, a traveling exhibition with several shows in Europe and in Japan. In 2007, the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York presented the exhibition Provoking Magic: Lighting of Ingo Maurer. Maurer constructed many creations from using LED’s, the first of those being the lighting object Bellissima Brutta in 1996. In 2001, he presented a table lamp with LED’s with the name EL.E.Dee. Since 2006, he is also experimenting with organic light-emitting diodes, presenting two objects in 2006, and a table lamp as limited edition. Among Maurer’s best designs are his winged bulb Lucellino and Porca Miseria! Since the early 1980’s, Maurer continues to work with his team of younger and developed designers to make creations come to life.
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AQ
What shape has the reality that you want to mold into your projects?
A Q
Design-art, the one-off and semi-craft pieces, half-way between art and design, seem to be the new trend in the sector. What do you think of this? Is this a valid contamination?
A Q
INTER Another trend, or to put it better a very contemporary need, as you do not like to label design, is sustainability. Do you bear this in mind in your designs?
Emotions interest me more than shape. So I would say that my design intent is to create spaces where people can feel happy with light. It is very important that my lights do not merely illuminate but also to make sure to communicate positive energy to other people: I never forget the emotional dimension that can come from light in my designs, even if this is not the only reason for my work.
My opinion is that one tends to overanalyze nowadays, forgetting that there is always an intuition underlying the creative process, which is very difficult and, at times, limiting to classify within precise categories.
It is important to take it into account studying and applying new the technologies that have a low environmental impact and enable energy. I have been using LED’s for some time (the prototype of the Bellissima Brutta light dates back to 1997, ndr) and I am also experimenting the innovative technology based on OLEDs (Organic Light Emitting Diode, ndr). Before putting the old incandescent lamps in the attic, however, there is still a lot of work to do, because the effect of warm light is so difficult to achieve with other systems: it was a real shock for me when I found out that incandescent bulbs would be banned in Australia by the year of 2010!
AQ Q
In his work as director of the Vitra Design Museum, Alexander von Vegesack has discovered many new talents. You often work with young people to help to make them known by the public. What do you think of the new generations? There are some very promising young people but it is difficult to find of anything really new. There are so many designers working “à la” manner of someone else and express nothing innovative. At the last edition of the Salone del Mobile of Milan I sponsored the work of Molo Design Vancover and Arcstream Barcelona because their extraordinary originality and creative force struck me. I would like to devote myself more to this research and promotion of young talents but I don’t have the time to do it more continuously.
AQ
The exhibition that hosts us shows Alexander von Vegesack’s private collection of design and other objects. Are you a collector?
A
RVIEW No. I own a few items, for example a table like this (a lacquered wood table, Gerrit T. Rietveld 1934), that I found at the Marché aux Puces and I feel admiration for the work of other designers but I have no need to possess them. I don’t like the idea of owning, of ownership in general, and a beautiful object can be enjoyed just be seeing it. Non the less, I think that collections in the various sectors are important to build a critical history and keep its memory alive.
In your case, was there someone who helped you to emerge? No. It was a natural development that took me from graphics to the design of lamps. And in part chance.
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MAURER’S
WORK
Maurer’s work consist of abstract and bold statements of art. He uses simple ideas and objects through materiality to express light in different forms for theeye to see for itself.
ADRIAN u uu
uu u u u uu u uu uuu u typeface designer
FRu uuTIGER
uu u
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an interview with
ADRIAN FRUTIGER type designer type designer type designer type designer type designer type designer
WHAT IS THE REASON FOR DESIGNING A NEW SANS-SERIF? Looking back on more than 40 years of concern with sans serif typefaces, I felt the obligation to design a linear style of sans serif, in the tradition of Erbar, Futura, and to a lesser extent of Gill Sans. These have purely constructed characters from which the element of a handwriting movement has been removed. Obviously this could be an outstanding new creation, but I have tried to make use of the experience and the stylistic developments of the 20th century in order to work out an independent alphabet meeting the modern typographical needs.
HOW HAVE YOU TREATED THE BOLD AND ITALIC VERSIONS? There is no separate italic design, for the simple reason that the sloped version of a constructivist typeface is produced on the purely mathematical principles. Modern typesetting equipment doesn’t this for the user by computer control, which is in any case essential for the adaptation of the O to an oval form. An angle of slope between 11° and 13° is recommended for the electronic italicization of the typeface Avenir.
HOW DID THESE PRINCIPLES INFLUENCE THE DESIGN OF INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERS? The vertical strokes are thicker than the horizontals and the O is not a perfect circle. Absolutely linear characters are difficult to read in continuous text and purely geometrical letters do not unite well harmoniously to form the word images that we read. Another factor in legibility is the difference in weight between up-strokes and down-strokes, based on the familiarity of roman typestyles, then which in turn owe much of the forms to the old calligraphy of the Middle Ages. For this reason the up-strokes of capital A, K, V, W and so on are noticeably thinner than the down-strokes.
HOW DOES AVENIR MEET THE NEEDS OF MODERN AND NEW TYPOGRAPHY? Since the early 1950s there have been three waves of sans serif style. At first, a Victorian revival sans serif or Grotesque typefaces replaced the outmoded Bauhaus style. The 19th century faces were the most modelled form of sans and the nearest to roman, with their varying stroke thicknesses. Then came the more or less modelled typeface families such as Helvetica™ and Univers™ with their many variations. These have made sans serif acceptable as a second text face to roman, practically every where except in literary books and newspaper editorial.