Shenzhen China, Steven Holl

The March issue of Metropolis digs deep into how the creative process happens for a number of designers. From Steven Holl’s watercolors that structurally ideate—and ultimately become—homes, to John Pawson’s travel photographs that inform the museum he’s building, and Matali Crasset’s modern vessel inspired by age-old dishes. These stories not only show how designers navigate the tricky spaces between design concept and final product but also reveal how art is integral to the design process. Indeed, in each of the pieces—the watercolors, the photographs, the African bowls—art is firmly in timeline of the design project it’s attached to.

Is there, then, a line between what is art and what is design? What is the fundamental difference?

Typographer and designer Roberto De Vincq de Cumptich, author of Men of Letters and People of Substance, defines the difference as being about the economics of consumption: Design demands and expects a consumer, art hopes for one but is not dependent upon it. He writes:

“Design is not Art, since Art exists as an answer to a question posed by an individual artist, while Design exists as an answer to a question posed by the marketplace. Design must have an audience to come into being, while Art seeks an audience, sometimes, luckily, finding it, sometimes not. Art pushes the limit of human experience and language for its own sake, while Design might do this but only to humanize and integrate people’s lives in the context of an economy. Design needs an economic system, while Art does not. Art may become a product, but it’s not the reason why it was created, but how our society transforms it into a commodity.” Read more…

Le Nichoir: Matali Crasset’s first feral house in France, photo: Lucas Fréchin

The last time we checked in with Matali Crasset, she was coming up with names like The Troglodyte for the ecolodge she had designed in the Tunisian desert. Now we find her deep in the forests of France, building little camper’s retreats. Six villages in the region of Meuse, Lorraine, which collectively call themselves by the rather lyrical name Le Vent des Forêts (The Forest Winds) have been inviting artists to their neck of the woods since 2008. Crasset is the only designer among this year’s invitees.

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At the Alessi Takes the Cake party, on Greene Street, the French designer Matali Crasset poses with the mixing bowl from her new Essentiel de Pâtisserie collection, designed with the renowned pastry chef Pierre Hermé. Read more…