LAB #4(43) 2008

the manufacturer is ready to risk and find new names, this can also bring good fortune to both sides. Ligne Roset is one of those companies that are willing to take a risk. It cooperates with a couple of leading designers on a permanent basis, and at the same time it works with young innovation-oriented designers. You remain a devotee of geometrical clear-cut shapes over the course of your creative work. Do you expect any new inventions in design? Or is design this simple? Clear geometrical shapes are the best remedy for visual boredom. This is the recipe that can give eternal life to objects. As to the geometrical shapes, I will continue working with them. Noth- ing will change in that. As far as the materials are concerned, I should mention that besides metal and glass I also work with leather, wood, lacquer, so one should not insist that design is simple. Which of your projects turned out to be the most successful? And why? It probably is the Peter Maly Bed made by Ligne Roset. This object has timeless value. Cre- ated in 1984, it is still in demand and still popular, it can be considered to be a classical piece. This bed has a simple, but very unusual shape. You cooperate with many companies (Interlubke, Ligne Roset, Cor, etc). How do you manage to defend your idea? What is the acceptable de- gree of intervention of companies into the artistic process? Certainly, the companies I work with con- stantly interfere with my art, and I have to watch for such intervention. Many helpers willing to give advice surround me. But I should mention that design is not only about art, but it is also about the participation of the company I work with. To create a successful product, one has to cooperate with the company closely. You once said that you create those things that really need to come into existence. What do you work on at the moment? What do consumers need today? The biggest problem today is the oversatura- tion of the market. When I started working in 1960, there was a lack of quality design goods. Good design was more of an exception, than a rule. These days the market of design has grown, therefore my task is to find a niche I could fill. I need to find something that a modern man needs. I do not want to simply create just another version of an object that already exists, because I am quite strict with myself and only work on those objects that I think really have to be created. Human existence has always been a measure of all things, therefore design should serve people by providing them with practical help. Design as it is cannot be an accident, a random act. It can serve as an indicator of some innovatory tendency, as a response to chang-

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dedicated to, except design and architecture? It is not easy to answer this question. My first thought would be to write a book about gardens. It is so nice to have a garden and to grow plants. After a whole day of working in the studio I hurry and go to my garden. I find a lot of pleasure in watching how plants grow, noticing the border between light and shadow, admiring the variety of flowers. Do you dream of your work? My dreams are quite surrealistic, but I never dream of design. You should be able to stop thinking about work at a certain moment and let yourself think of something else. You should not create such a situation, when work would pursue in dreams.

ing habits or way of life, or as an expression of certain spirit of the times. I am currently working on several projects at once. I am developing a whole system of cush- ioned furniture for a Japanese company. What is your attitude to interviews for magazines on design? Do you consider them to be a boring, but inevitable thing, or is it a means to find like- minded people? To me it is a chance to share my experience and ideas with other people in the first place. Which field would you be able to work success- fully, if not in design? If I were not a designer, I would be an architect. These two professions are quite close. If you wrote a book, what subject would it be

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