Three Layer Cake

Eckart Maise is Managing Director of Vitra Home Collection.

 
He has had some of the most enviable jobs in the design community since joining Vitra in 1995.  After studying business in Germany, France and Italy, and after a short time in PR, he moved over to the Vitra Design Museum where, among other responsibilities, he worked with many great designers or their estates to put classic chair designs into the world famous Vitra Design Museum Miniatures Collection.  While at the museum, he also started a program of re-editions, working with designs of Charles & Ray Eames, George Nelson, Sori Yanagi or Isamu Noguchi (Noguchi table (1944), right, Photo, Isabel Truniger). Since moving over to the Vitra Home Collection as Managing Director in 2004, he works with contemporary designers to develop new pieces with distinct identities that are fit for the “Vitra chapter” of design history books, and most certainly also for the author’s own book. 

Eckart is highly regarded by the designers with whom he works, and his respect and admiration for them is reciprocal and genuine.  I like to think of him as one of the driving forces behind Vitra’s new designs which have a high probability of becoming the Eames Lounge Chair of the 2000s.  Eckart would probably disagree, but with a very articulate justification as to why not, and of course with a smile. 

You came from the Vitra Design Museum, where you managed a portfolio of design classics.  Today you’re managing a portfolio of new designs.  How do the new fit with the old?  Should they be viewed on the same continuum?  Is the goal to produce a collection of “new” classics, or to just produce ‘good design’?

It’s not about ‘good design’ or ‘new classics’.  The hope is that the new designs will be well received by the market, that they will survive and become classics.  We view design as a survival of the fittest, it’s really Darwinist.  Some things are still around in the market, people still like them, they still buy them, they are still fresh products.  Other designs end up as curiosities in museums. 

Of course the old products and the new are linked.  It’s fascinating to work on new products.  It’s a risk compared to the classics, but the classics help the new get out.  They give a framework for the new products, give the consumer security and help the manufacturer to finance new ventures.  It’s a wheel that turns.
 

Many of the people (buyers and architects) with whom I spoke after the Salone del Mobile this year (2006) felt that once again, there was nothing new presented and feel that the field has been in a slump for some time.  This was also reflected in several reviews of the Fair.  How do Vitra Home Division’s newest designs fit into this horizon? 

I’ve been doing fairs for many years as an exhibitor and “nothing new” is a constant comment you hear.  It is hard for the visitor to see the new things in the massive offer presented at a trade show. Often changes are small, almost hidden, and you’ll only notice their impact a few years down the road. 

I think that this past year we’ve had a couple of new things, some were just new to us and some were new technological ideas. If you think about the microarchitectural elements like the Roc room divider by the Bouroullecs that we presented in Milan this year, and the artisinal Polder sofa (above, Photo:  Vitra) by Hella Jongerius, or the knitted Slow chair also by the Bouroullecs, these are quite innovative products.
 

How do these collaborations with designers begin?  How does Vitra ensure that it distinguishes itself from collections out there which use the same designers?  How do you work with the designers during the design process? 

The way we work together and how we meet designers is like in real life.  You meet in different ways.  Sometimes the designers come to us or we go to them, or a third party introduces them to us.  Vitra is always talking to various designers, but in the end we take on very few relationships because we work in the long term.  For example, we’ve been working with Jasper Morrison since 1990, the Bouroullecs for six or seven years, and we just began with Hella Jongerius, a relationship we hope will last long time.  In this way, Vitra will really be an important chapter in the designer’s life. 

During the design process it’s also continual development.  We see the designers all the time, they come here frequently, sometimes we go to their studios.  It’s like ping pong.  There’s a concept then a technological idea, so there’s a constant dialogue. 

If you had to choose three Vitra-pieces to put into a time capsule today, which would they be and why?  

From the Home Collection, the Eames Lounge Chair is definitely an icon that should be preserved.  Next I’d say the Algue by the Bouroullecs (right, Photo Isabel Truniger) because it is an interesting and intuitive element of microarchitecture that people can build with on their own.  It shows the systematic approach that the Bouroullecs have, their idea of building things out of elements.  And then I’d say the Polder sofa (above)  by Hella Jongerius because it brings back a lot of the charm of craftsmen, the charm of personal production that is preserved even after it is transformed into industrial production. 

Looking around, “crafts” is definitely one of the trends that has become more emphasized, and one of the example used to illustrate this is precisely the Polder sofa, with its hand-sewn buttons.

Yes, designers are very interested in ‘crafts’, in the ‘craftsman’ sense of the word.  It’s kind of a memory of many generations of people.  With globalization, on one hand there’s a tendency toward “homogenization” but on the other hand, globalization offers you all these possibilities of discovering craftsmanship of other cultures and people, and making it accessible to other audiences.  Vitra isn’t interested in the tourist souvenir concept, in other words, taking something from a far off place and bringing it here.  The interesting thing to us is to integrate the richness of the common memories and cultures with industrial production and modern technology and see what we can pull out of this dialogue.  This is also something that Hella stands for and I think she’s ahead of the curve on these thoughts. (Nepalese buttons used for Polder Sofa, photo:  Vitra)

Hella Jongerius is one of only a handful of women who has appeared in the Vitra collections, after Ray Eames.  Is it really that hard to find women designers and architects whose work fits the Vitra vision?  Or do you feel that these numbers are representative of the numbers in the high-end design profession?  

This is a question I think you confront in any sector of the corporate world. I don’t think that the reasons why few women make it to top positions are different in design than they are in other fields. When working with designers, we are not looking for a gender quota, we work with the top designers in the field. 

But of course women’s approach to interiors is important.  In the home, most decisions are taken by women; normally the men are less involved.  So we are very happy to work with Hella Jongerius.  Hella has a very strong voice in these discussions within the Home Collection. 

European vs. U.S. design.  Are they two distinct identities?  Is Vitra more one than the other?  

For us it is both because Vitra has always seen itself as an international company.  We come from Modernism, which is more European in origin.  But we like the American take on it, especially what Eames and Nelson and Gerard developed.  There was this saying that they humanized modernism; in a way they gave modernism a “Californian” feel.  So for us these two identities are interwoven, we can’t separate them.  We have both influences in our company.  Of course Eames has special importance for Vitra purely for the way the company developed.  “What would Charles Eames say?” is a question that’s always floating in the back of someone’s mind here.  (Eames Lounge and ottoman, photo:  Hans Hansen)

We believe in this idea of artist designers, but in America designers are maybe too close to the industry in a way, maybe they understand the laws of commerce and marketing and manufacturing too well so they become very close to the industry in the beginning.  If you want to have a ground-breaking or strong result, you need someone who works with the industry but is at the same time a counterpart to the industry.
 

What food/dessert best describes your personal taste in design?  How has it changed since you started working in the field?  More than a single dish, it’s maybe a lunch or dinner where you serve different things from different regions or styles.  It’s not fusion cuisine where you have everything on one plate in the same dish.  Instead, maybe you have Indian, Italian, traditional German all served separately so they all keep their integrity, but all served at one meal.  My tastes in design haven’t changed.  Of course now there are different options, I know more, I see more, but it hasn’t changed.  (In order from far left:  Vitra US Managing Director Martin Feller, Greg Lynn, Hella Jongerius, Eckart Maise, and Arian Brekveld from Jongeriuslab, ICFF 2006)  

The first thing you notice in a restaurant?   The mood as you walk in, the interior, the light.  The interior design you obviously notice before you ever experience the food.  The next thing you notice is the chair, whether it’s comfortable.  Then the food.  So only then does the food have a chance to be convincing, after the ambience and interior. 
 

Eating what food brings back the best memories and why?  I’m a big fan of pasta.  This is the best memory, my early memories of travelling in Italy on my own starting back 25 years ago.  This is definitely my soul food.

The first piece of furniture you bought for your home?  Where is it now?   Like many people, the first piece I bought myself with my own money was an IKEA armchair.  It was very inexpensive, like maybe 25 euros or something.  Then it had the destiny of being moved into my bedroom and then was handed down to my dog and he slept on it, and it lived on it for 20 years.  And then I had to throw it out!
 

The last piece of art you fell in love with?   It’s my daughter’s drawings of people and patterns.  It is great to see how a child already develops something like a personal style. My daughter draws a lot with patterns and textures, not the usual line drawings.  This is something she just does on her own.  Of course, we sometimes go to the museums with her, but we didn’t buy her a book, like How to Draw like Picasso or anything! (laugh). 

 
No home is complete without…   People.  I think that’s what bad architects and interior designers do wrong.  They don’t’ take account of the people who live in the homes they design. 

Magazine you can’t live without.   I can live without all magazines.  Of course, I read them.  But one in particular that I have to have every month or whatever doesn’t exist.

You’ll always pick up a magazine if __________________ is on the cover?
The cover is very important, sure, but I can’t specify a subject.  I’m not a fan of any celebrity. 

Nobody?  Nobody nobody?  Like, I really like Tom Cruise.
I’m sorry for you!  (laugh) 

Robbie Williams?
No! (laugh) 

Ok, ok.
Of course, if there’s a big story about Eames or something, I’ll pick it up for colleagues or the office.

You’re most proud of your collection of…
I don’t collect things in the sense that I’m not passionate about any certain type of object so much that I want to have them all. As for physical things, even though I work in this collector’s field, I’m not a collector myself. 

You can never have too many…
Good ideas.

Logo and Photo credits:  Provided by Vitra.