Three Layer Cake

Studio Bouroullec:  The superficial need not apply.  Interview with Erwan and Ronan

I was just becoming enthused and absorbed with the high-end design world in 2000 when this strange last name appeared in all the magazines.  Bouroullec.  Two brothers, Ronan (right) and Erwan (left), a few years earlier had done what everyone dreams of doing— being in the right place at the right time.  They wooed Giulio Cappellini of the design powerhouse Cappellini, and in 2000, Spring Chair, their first Cappellini product, made its debut.  I admit, I wasn’t impressed.  I swore I wouldn’t do what all the ‘cool’ people were doing.  I wouldn’t jump on the Bouroullec band wagon.  But in retrospect, I realize it was because I took the chair only on face value.  It took quite a few years to understand the depth and breadth of each of their pieces and to mature enough to be able to appreciate the work that the Bouroullecs produce.
 

More than “designs”, the Bouroullecs produce tangible concepts.  Where the majority of interior accessories which make the pages of the world’s most influential glossies and blogs comprise merely an aesthetically pleasing, often trendy, design which will last a season or at best change color to stay current, the Bouroullecs’ products are realizations of multifaceted design solutions addressing physical but also sociological needs.  They push limits in order to create an object which satisfies their own curiosity, but which tells a complete story.  Each piece has been studied and planned in every aspect from form to potential use, user and environment.  For example, their most recent realization of The Tile, a fabric tile designed for the Kvadrat fabric showroom in Stockholm, Sweden.  The Tile, as Erwan explained in our interview, was designed for Kvadrat, with Kvadrat’s specific needs in mind, and was installed as a tool to showcase their fabrics.  However, by its very modular nature, The Tile can be applied to a myriad of other situations, like for residential soundproofing, or as a purely aesthetic divider.  In this way, The Tile is a simple and essential building block which allows the end-consumer to decide the context in which to place it and how many of its qualities to use.  This type of ‘on-site’ personalization is a fundamental aspect of their design philosophy.

 
The book which they wrote for Phaidon Press titled, Ronan et Erwan Bouroullec, explains in great detail the genesis of their projects through 2003, and is an excellent resource for understanding the specific thoughts and concepts behind their work.  Their work appears in permanent collections like New York Museum of Modern Art, the “Musée National d’Art Moderne - Centre Georges Pompidou” in Paris, the London Design Museum, the Lisbon Design Museum and the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum of Rotterdam.  It also appears in the collections of manufacturers like Vitra, Cappellini, Issey Miyake, Magis, Ligne Roset, Habitat and the Kréo Gallery.
 

It has been written around that the brothers use very deliberate and measured language when they speak about their work.  However, the interview with Erwan reveals how incredibly seamless he is in his approach to design and his own self-knowledge.  There is nothing measured about his answers nor his conversation.  He knows what he wants and knows how to shape it, and his communication style, like his sense of aesthetics and ability to give dimension to their designs, is fluid.  Quite the opposite of measured.  If only he would take off his AC Milan scarf…  As for Ronan, his sense of humor is  measured.  To perfection.

For what contribution would you like to be known to the design field? 

What I really hope is to contribute identity with some products and projects that define their own part and by this their own character and that they are, I would say logical enough by themselves to be like a soccer ball—  Which is incredibly detailed and simple at the same time.  Something that has the ability to behave by itself.  For me, something that I’d like to be known for is something like “The Great Alchemist”.  The question of design is how to be able to create great alchemy inside a project.  It means that a project is able to answer to many points of view at the same time.  If it’s just one idea, it’s not developed enough.  A good object has to be able to come from many points of view.  Shape, technical, democratic, social...
 

What role does “being a designer” or “design” play in your life? 

E:  For me it’s a pure obsession.  It’s a thing I can never forget even when I’m tired.  I just think about design, my project.  I imagine if I were a painter, I would have the same obsession for painting.  The other thing is that in fact, in my own personal life, it has a bit of importance, but I don’t think I’m too inserted in the design “star system”.  I don’t go to design parties except in Milan, which I like because I see many friends.  I don’t use my figure of being a designer.
 

How similar are yours and Ronan’s personal and professional goals? 

We are brothers, but we are only five years apart.  We grew up in the same culture, the same house, the same country side.  At the same time, we never played football together because five years difference is big socially.  When I was five, he was ten.  So we never had the same friends, we never went to the disco together.  I wasn’t there when he kissed his first girlfriend and he wasn’t there for mine.  We are the same from a cultural point of view.  So for reactions, we understand incredibly quickly.  But afterwards for something deeper than just a reaction, we have differences from time to time. We sometimes don’t agree on approaching a project. But we have an incredibly strong brotherhood in most directions.
 

Eckart Maise over at Vitra Home said that when you guys first came to their technicians with your idea for the Slow Chair, they said a knitted structure so large that could sustain the weight of a person couldn’t be done.  How do you know your projects are feasible when others say they aren’t? 

It’s a little like believing in God!  When people say it’s not possible, we never ignore that answer, but sometimes you have to push forward.  As a designer, what is quite interesting is that you have a wider point of view than a machinist or a technical or marketing person.  We have the ability to embrace the whole of the project.  Sometimes the points of detail that look difficult to achieve at one point of the project are resolved by another point of the project.  From this point of view sometimes we trust others’ point of view, other times we push for ours.  With a company like Vitra, they can say “we believe it’s not possible,” but we go on and produce prototypes and go forward because it needs to be verified.  Sometimes it’s not possible, sometimes it is.  We make mark-ups, collect materials, we test them in our own studio, so we do a lot of the developing and verification process already in the studio.  So part of the tech development and engineering is already done in house before we propose projects to others.  So from this point of view we feel quite safe when we propose a project because we have made preliminary attempts.
 

Was the Kvadrat tile conceived as part of the work you’ve been doing which pushes the limits of materials and their design applications, like the Facett line for Ligne Roset, or the Slow Chair for Vitra—or was it a part of that concept at all? 

I think there are two ways of answering this question.  On the one hand we are in a bit of an obsession about some concepts that we want to realize but which are, I would say, wide enough or difficult enough to be always worked out to be something that you need to push, something you can’t achieve with just one project, because as soon as you make one project you understand a lot of things that you need to do and that there is more you need (or want) to do. In this way, The Tile follows the Algue, and the Clouds, and the lit clos we did in the beginning.  In another way, if you look at Facett, or The Tiles, they have a different baseline from a technological point of view or the way they can be sold to the public.  From this point of view they can be site specific.  I was trained as a contemporary artist, not a designer.  In contemporary art, you are taught to make a work in situ.  So for me a design corresponds to or is made for a space.  You are taught to try to understand the social particularity.  To me, design is the most in situ thing you can desire.  In this case (design), you don’t answer to a space, it’s not site specific in terms of geography or volume, but the companies you have in front of you.  All of them are different, like human beings.  Tall and thin, or short and fat …and well they’re just all different.  Most of the questions we pose are trying to understand who the companies are, and trying to dance with them.  We try to have a relationship which brings out the most of us…  From this point of view, the Kvadrat tile totally emphasizes their own identity because it’s made with their fabric, and at the same time, it brings them to a bit of another world not too far from where they are, just a step further.  I consider them a site specific project.

Interview follows on next page...