 |
|
Between Brothers
In a world dominated by relentless self-promoters,
the quiet, almost Zen-like understatement of Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec
speaks volumes.
By Cathy Lang Ho
June 2004
Young designers dream that what happened to Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec
will happen to them. Imagine one of your earliest designs—a
prototype really—grabbing the attention of furniture-world giant
Giulio Cappellini. He gives you your first real commission (which is
followed by jobs for Issey Miyake and Vitra). Then every design magazine
in the world showcases everything you do. The Design Museum in London
gives you an exhibition, Phaidon publishes your monograph, a second
major museum gives you another exhibition. And all this happens within a
handful of years, most while you’re still in your twenties.
What do the Bouroullecs have that everyone wants? When I meet them I
realized that the answer wouldn’t be easily revealed since both are
low-key, discreet (beyond the typical French standards), and
modest—like their designs. Their art is not easy to
“get.” Restrained and meticulous, it has been described as
“the future of design,” “fresh,”
“intellectual”—as well as “monotonous.”
It’s difficult for most people to form their own opinion about them
because few have actually encountered their work. Although they design
everything with industrial production in mind, most of the 60 or so
projects in their new monograph—which they designed—remain
unrealized concepts or relatively inaccessible (small-batch or gallery)
projects.
One must spend time with the designers to understand the power of
discretion. They are the opposite of showy or precious. In the context
of a design world dominated by puffed-up impresarios and publicity
hounds, the Bouroullecs—down-to-earth and downright
sweet—begin to seem exotic. Among their more endearing traits:
they’re barely aware of their own press. (I alerted them to the
existence of some of their own clippings; they have never had press kits
and don’t have business cards.) They run their own errands (when
Erwan realized the studio was out of coffee, he dashed to a nearby
market to buy more.) They don’t look designy or own designy things.
Their office is deliberately off the radar, in St. Denis, a colorful
blue-collar suburb north of Paris, home to 90,000 people of 60 different
nationalities. (I initially mistook their unmarked office, located on a
small side street a few doors down from an auto-body shop, for a
garage.) But perhaps the most undesignerlike of all is their sense of
calm.
When I visited them in February I expected to find the Bouroullecs’
office in a minor frenzy, in preparation for Magis’s introduction of
their new line of outdoor furniture at the Milan Furniture Fair in
April, their retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los
Angeles in June, and the unveiling of a family of furniture to
inaugurate Vitra’s new residential line this summer. Instead I
found the studio—a bright open space, formerly a carpenter’s
workshop—relaxed, even tranquil. Two young, charming employees were
quietly pushing computer mice around with one hand, holding cigarettes
in the other. Truth be told, it felt a bit like nothing was happening.
I sensed that the secret of their work was the impression that nothing
extraordinary is happening—and the wonderful surprise that
something actually is. Take, for example, the recently launched and much
hyped Joyn office system, which centers on a long white table that can be
“zoned” with detachable components, such as low panels, desk
blotters, lights, and storage trays. But if you take away all the
details, you have...a long plain white table. Admittedly it’s a
beautiful table. Monochromatic and materially uniform, it is closer to
minimalist sculpture than contract furniture. The mix-and-match elements
are perfectly detailed, if painfully simple. “If we made them
strange shapes or colors, people would think, ‘Ooh, this is
Design!’” Erwan explains. “We didn’t want
that.”
Their work, they concede, is not about invention. It is more about
evolution than revolution. “Natural selection,” Ronan says, to
explain their faith in the self-organizing intelligence of materials and
objects into shapes and functions. “We try to find the logic inside
an object,” Erwan elaborates. “Some of that logic includes not
showing too much, not using too much material, of trying to do the most
with the least.” Adaptation, of course, is integral to natural
selection. Their designs possess the basic instinct to be useful and
endure. With Joyn they wanted to create, as Ronan says, “furniture
that had to adapt to people, and not the other way around,” as is
typical of contract offerings. Joyn is a response to the unpredictable
and changing nature of work, which sometimes demands privacy, other
times openness. Erwan says, “For us it was important that the
system had the possibility to evolve with the number of people working,
the type of project they’re working on, the time of year, and so
on.”
“The Bouroullecs make things that are almost normal but in the end
have a point of view, an edge,” says Vitra chairman Rolf Fehlbaum,
whom the designers regard as a mentor. “They walk along this path,
probably opened by Jasper Morrison, that leads toward normality rather
than eccentricity or exaggeration—which you see so much in
design—and still brings you to something that’s worth looking
at, that’s surprising and special. True, their designs are not
loud, but they become interesting in an environmental sense. Together
with other things, they work.”
Openness and ease run through their portfolio, beginning with their
earliest piece, the Disintegrated Kitchen, designed by Ronan in 1997 and
exhibited at the Salon du Meuble, in Paris. Newly graduated from the
École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs, the 26-year-old Ronan
regularly brought in Erwan, then 21 and studying art at the École
Nationale d’Arts de Paris-Cergy, to assist him with his design
projects. The project posited the kitchen as a stand-alone piece of
furniture. Disintegrated Kitchen was meant to offer liberation, allowing
customers to buy it like an appliance and renovate their kitchen without
hiring contractors, knocking down walls, or replastering.
User autonomy crops up again and again in their work, expressing their
desire to “let the customer be the creator,” as Erwan put it.
They have brought modularity and variability to everything from vases
(Combinatory Vases, an eight-piece set that can be arranged in endless
configurations) to shelving (Charlotte, which is assembled like a house
of cards; Brick and Cloud, lightweight hot wire-cut polystyrene units
that can be stacked to form fantastic airy walls) to carpets (Zip Carpet
for Cappellini, a system of colored felt panels that can be zipped
together to create any dimension or composition), and now even
architecture (Polystyrene House, an easy-to-assemble home composed of
polystyrene “ribs”).
The awards began flowing in from the start, including the Grand Prix du
Design de la Ville de Paris in 1998, the New Designer Award at New
York’s International Contemporary Furniture Fair in 1999, a
Compasso d’Oro nomination in Milan in 2001, and the “Creator
of the Year” at Paris’s Salon du Meuble in 2002. In a short
time the brothers have produced quite a bit. It’s difficult to
comprehend how they manage, given the small size and unharried pace of
their studio. At present they have about 20 active projects.
Perhaps, again, it’s their faith in natural selection that keeps
the Bouroullecs from worrying about what they are doing and who they are
doing it with. They hire employees, take on clients, and create their
designs with an acceptance of the inevitability of things. “We know
our office is out of the way, but it’s a good filter,” Ronan
says. “Those who find us tend to be sympathetic personalities.”
They like to participate in every stage of a project, beginning by
sitting down with each other and drawing—always
drawing—throwing sketches back and forth until a solution emerges.
“It’s like a conversation,” Erwan says. “Or
Ping-Pong,” Ronan says. The sparring continues to the end until it
is photographed by Ronan.
The sketches that kick off their creative process are almost comically
unrevealing, the picture equivalent of a Beckett play. In one stack I
saw drawings of circles, ovals, and lines (the basis of their new
furniture designs for Vitra), reminding me of the scene in Hudsucker
Proxy when Tim Robbins proudly holds a drawing of a circle—the
design of the product that will save his company (the hula hoop). One
can see where the Bouroullecs’ simple drawings lead, however. The
packaging they designed for a family of cosmetic products for Issey
Miyake began with a clean line—that is, the idea that the edge of
the packaging would be a thin line, a seam, with its center bulging out
a little bit, like a piece of ravioli. The products tweak the
dimensionality of traditional packaging (all boxes and bottles). They
can’t say who came up with the initial idea, but they do know that,
once inside a problem, they both have natural instincts about
proportion, color, as well as practical issues such as manufacturability
and cost. “We don’t know anything about cosmetics, and we
didn’t spend days looking at existing products,” Erwan says.
“I guess you could say we approach things naively, or rather, with
an open mind.”
Since 1999 the Bouroullecs have signed all their pieces together because
it’s impossible to discern who is responsible for what. Their
closeness and respect for each other is evident when they talk, pausing
constantly to let the other speak. Naturally they have their
differences, and the process (like any relationship) includes plenty of
fights. “Our only fear is to one day not care enough to fight, to
agree to compromise,” Erwan says. Both have confidence and
self-assurance, as well as “innocence and a complete lack of
cynicism,” Fehlbaum says. “They’re not from Paris but
from the north—they are very sound people, down-to-earth. They know
who they are. They can take all this without being taken in.”
With this confidence the Bouroullecs have been able to turn down some big
jobs. In the middle of our interview they received a call from the office
of Jean-Jacques Aillagon, the French minister of culture, asking the
brothers to design a conference table. They immediately started to fret
about how to turn down the offer politely. “Why wouldn’t you
do it?” I asked, feeling sure it was due to Aillagon’s
political conservatism. “We don’t do one-offs,” Ronan
replied matter-of-factly.
They also recently turned down a potentially juicy job from a well-known
design-sensitive sports brand due to scheduling. The Bouroullecs are
determined to keep their studio small and to remain involved in the
design. Ronan says, “The first thing we say to clients is, ‘We
need time.’” Erwan adds: “It’s not rising-star
behavior. It’s just being practical about the fact that good design
takes time.” Ronan says, “To us a job is not a one-shot deal.
It’s a relationship. We must understand them, they must understand
us.”
The Bouroullecs’ fast track to the top must be put in the context
of what’s going on in the design world, which is always looking for
new characters, new heroes. The old enfants terribles are decidedly no
longer enfants. Stephen Todd asked Philippe Starck in the
New York Times what he thought of the boys who were being
proclaimed his heirs. “The media are always out to dethrone
me,” Starck grumbled. “They have to in order to keep moving
things along.” On the Bouroullecs’ trademark reticence, Starck
said, “If you don’t speak, no one can tell if you are
intelligent or not.” Their discretion, he noted, “is very
intellectual but about nothing.” But the brothers couldn’t be
more different from Starck or less interested in his throne. They
acknowledge his role in popularizing design, but, Erwan says, “We
don’t have a global theory about design, and we don’t want to.
The world is a big jungle and should remain a jungle. There can’t
be only one answer.”
Part of this attitude surely stems from the Bouroullecs’ rural
roots. (They regularly retreat to their childhood home in Quimper,
Brittany, where their family still lives and where Ronan recently bought
a house.) “Country people mix everything: old plates from
grandmother sit next to a mobile phone,” Erwan says. “You have
to accept that we will always be surrounded by things from everywhere:
from China or Italy, from the past or the present. It’s important
for us to let these things coexist.”
When asked to create an installation for the Cologne Furniture Fair in
January, they resisted the request for the Ideal House. “It’s
a terrible idea, to have one designer create everything in an
environment,” Ronan says. They used the opportunity to test a new
product concept, which reflects the most baroque direction they’ve
taken so far. It’s a way of making walls with small plastic clips
that can be “knitted” together like textile. In Cologne these
textured three-dimensional walls created flexible temporary rooms, which
they filled with Thonet chairs and a Danish wood-burning stove.
The Bouroullecs designed the first clip for BETC, a French advertising
agency that asked them to build a rooftop sun pavilion. Imagine the
agency’s surprise when the brothers showed up with a cardboard
scale model that fit in the palm of the hand saying, “This is the
solution.” Always looking to create industrially produced,
easy-to-use open systems, they came up with an angular clip that
resembles a complicated clothespin, and later a more free-form green
‘vegetal’ clip that, once knitted together into a sheet,
appears like seaweed or a wall of moss.
These plastic-clip wall systems will be part of Vitra’s launch of
residential products, which includes other pieces by the Bouroullecs and
by Jasper Morrison. “When we made the first drawings for [the
vegetal clip] nobody could imagine what it would be, not even us,”
Ronan says. “It wasn’t until they were done that it was clear
they could be a product.” The other pieces the Bouroullecs are
working on for Vitra (seating, lighting, tables) continue the
“modern knitting” idea. Though still early in development,
they are presently experimenting with an industrial technology that can
create three-dimensional knitted shapes. Imagine a Noguchi lamp wearing
a sock.
“Their work makes you wonder, ‘How did someone ever come up
with that idea? It’s so odd, why would you do that?’”
Fehlbaum says. “It’s work that emerges not in the spirit of
necessity but opens a new poetic possibility. It makes you think,
‘Yes, why not?’” |
 |
 |
The sinewy bends of each interlocking branch designed by brothers Ronan
and Erwan Bouroullec join to form an intricate screen (below), which
Vitra will release later this year.
Photographs by Stéphane Gizard for Metropolis |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
TWIG WALL SYSTEM
Vitra, 2004
This flexible fabric is made of precise little polypropylene clips that
snap together and suspend from a horizontal metal wire. Working at first
with a very small scale model, the brothers delicately crafted the shape
of the clip and then let the soft wall take shape.
Courtesy Vitra |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
STRIPED CHAIR
Magis, 2004
A simple to produce outdoor chair consisting of a frame with
polycarbonate slats and a foam-injected fabric cushion, the
straightforward Striped Chair (above and below) was released by Magis at
the Milan Furniture Fair this past April.
Courtesy Magis |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
A-POC BOUTIQUE
Issey Miyake, 2000
Enclosing the fitting room at the Paris store are green and blue strips
of foam-lined fabric—similar to the clear plastic strip-curtains
commonly used at warehouses. Passing through the curtain, the customer
finds a calm space that admits only soft noise. |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
CLOUD MODULES
Cappellini, 2003
First designed for Issey Miyake, who needed something interesting to
fill a room, the cloud modules—which measure approximately
three-and-a-half feet wide by six feet tall—are “like a
child’s game that plays with the geometry of a cloud,” Erwan
says. They are designed to grow and multiply in space. |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
AIO COLLECTION
Habitat, 2000
Designed more for everyday use, the porcelain dinner set is “just
some tableware,” explains Erwan, “no more or less.” The
simple set includes a coffeepot, cup, mug, teapot, and stackable plates
and bowls. |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
JOYN OFFICE SYSTEM
Vitra, 2002
The enclosing structure designed for the Joyn office system is
“meant to disturb the architecture of a big open space,”
explains Erwan. Based on sensation rather than function, he believes the
structure responds to the scale at which we work.
Couresty Vitra |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
COMBINATORY VASES
Cappellini, 1998
One of the first objects the Bouroullecs designed for Cappellini, the
combinatory vase is made up of a set of parts that have no function in
isolation. The user can assemble the parts into almost an infinite
number of configurations. |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
L’EAU D’ISSEY
Issey Miyake, 2003
The most universally reproduced objects the brothers have designed, the
Issey Miyake fragrance and bath collection began with a study of
envelopes. The shape of each bottle varies based on the volume of the
product inside. |
|
|
JOYN OFFICE SYSTEM
Vitra, 2002
Quoting Marcel Duchamp, Ronan says, “Things used to be better,
because there were no solutions and therefore no problems.”
Designed with that philosophy in mind, the Joyn office system does not
impose a work solution but allows the user’s individual work habits
to modify and define the space.
Couresty Vitra |
|
|
POLYSTYRENE HOUSE
Exhibition, 2002
Conceived as a temporary home for an artist, the light polystyrene
house—made of large blocks that come together in big sweeping
movements—is meant to be assembled and forgotten. |
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
FLOATING HOUSE
Centre d’Art de Chatou, 2004
The Bouroullecs’ first architectural commission—a floating
house for artists that will drift along the Seine River until a boat
pulls it ashore—was designed in collaboration with architects Denis
Daversin and Jean-Marie Finot and will begin construction this
November. |
|
|
LIT CLOS
Kreo Gallery, 2003
One of their earliest designs, the stand alone bedroom creates an
intimate yet open enclosure. Made of painted plywood and soldered steel,
it relies on a simple do-it-yourself assembly method. |
|
|
DISINTEGRATED KITCHEN
Cappellini, 1998
First exhibited by Ronan in 1997 at the Salon du Meuble in Paris, this
conceptual project reconceived the kitchen as a simplified unit
set-apart from the wall. The prototype, made by David Toppani, launched
his career. |
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
CHARLOTTE SHELVES
Vitra, 2004
A four-year-old project that Vitra is releasing for the first time on a
large scale, this reconfigurable shelving unit, which is made of
injected polypropylene, assembles without a single screw. |
|
|
BRICK
Kreo Gallery, 2000
The laser cut polystyrene bricks, which stack to form a wall, began as a
study in indistinct boundaries for an installation in Paris. Cappellini
began producing the units in painted wood in 2002, marketing them as
modular shelves. |
|
|
ZIP RUG
Vitra, 2004
First launched by Cappellini but now re-introduced by Vitra, the strips
of rug (shown left) have zippers on either edge so that one can easily
zip and unzip the rugs into different sizes and patterns.
All photos—unless indicated otherwise—courtesy Bouroullec |
|
|
|
BACK TO TOP
