In this interview, Carmen Cita talks with Erwan about the Losanges Project, the Bouroullecs’ latest collaboration with Nanimarquina.
CC: This year, Sydney Design explores the theme, ‘Is old new again” When you design contemporary objects for modern consumers, to what extent is your creative process informed by ‘the past”
EB: In my opinion there is a really long term evolution in design, and especially furniture design. Why so’ First, because furniture is a story of mankind; it’s something that has always existed and will always remain. There are limited possibilities for the form and figure of furniture. Furniture is not subject to huge technological innovation. Furniture objects are incredibly real and they are not part of the virtual world; they are not at all part of communication technology; they are something which still has to be built. Furniture is not like a cloud or like the wind; it is like a tree or like a rock. And so while there is a long and colourful history behind furniture design, it’s not changing or moving forwards as quickly as other technology like mobile phones.
CC: Taking that idea of tradition and progress, let’s focus more specifically on your recent Losanges Project [See Image 1], where you have given the traditional Persian rug a distinctly contemporary look and feel. Why did you choose the kilim weaving technique’
EB: Here’s the thing about technology that must be understood. New technological ways of making ‘craft’ objects are not based on the relevancy or the quality of the technique, but they are based on the relevancy of an economical point of view. And so many end crafts that have been developed by mankind, over many years, have been killed incredibly quickly in the last century by industrial revolution. Our choice to use the kilim technique shows that we are keen on protecting those kinds of end crafts. As soon as we have the opportunity to engage in these kinds of projects we do it in order to maintain the people doing this, because by maintaining them you protect the end craft; a bit like you do for some species of endangered animals. So that’s a general background.
The thing with kilim is that everything is handmade. Of course the weaving, but also the rough wool yarn is partially handmade. The yarn is hand-dyed and you never get exactly the same colour everywhere on the yarn. This generates a certain irregularity that then becomes normality. The carpet is so full of irregularity that in a way it becomes smooth, like an even surface. This is the kind of irregularity that industry can never do. It’s an incredible quality. In industry they can never accept that something could be irregular or in between. If I look for a red that is in between 95% of this red and 1.5% of this red, they just say no, it has to be uniform, exactly the way that they normally do it.
In factories, in the manufacturing industry, they have a lot of cameras looking at the work, a lot of cameras just checking that, for example, each glass is perfect and there is no bubble or something like this. Then as soon as the camera sees a ‘problem’, it says, ‘This is a problem. So stop it, and take it out.’ But the cameras are not clever enough to realise that this small change is not really a problem, it doesn’t stand out, it’s just something that gives a little bit of nerve to the object – and that’s typically what the human eye does so well. Like when a carpenter works with wood, if there is a big knot in the wood, sometimes it actually creates a beautiful design on the wood, and on the other hand sometimes it will look bad. The human eye can value this very quickly, and the carpenter can cut the wood in a way that preserves the natural beauty of the material, whereas industry will simply say, ‘Take this plank out because it has a knot in it and I can’t understand it.’ So end craft brings a kind of vibration into the object that industry cannot, and this needs to be protected.
CC: The Losanges Project was carried through by craftsmen in Northern Pakistan. How closely did you and Ronan work with the craftsmen’
EB: We didn’t meet them because they are so far away and we don’t speak the same language. Nanimarquina, who has plenty of experience working with different end crafts in different parts of the world, oversaw the project. We sent a very precise drawing to the craftsmen. Ronan and I are always afraid to ask people for something which is too complicated. We are always afraid that the idea will be too transformed. In a way, patterns are quite easy to do with kilim. If you look carefully at an old-style kilim pattern and how it is made you will see. We thought it would be possible to make a kilim in a losange shape, maybe not the easiest way, but possible. So we sent a proposal with a 1:1 scale technical drawing indicating where the different colours go [See Image 2]. They made us a first sample and sent it to Paris. We reacted to the sample and the choice of colour because we had been choosing colours from yarns, and the way that you experience the colour from a yarn to a surface made with that yarn is quite different. So we had to change some of the colours, and there was a lot of discussion about the borders of the carpets, the way that the border would be finished. There is a common language used for end crafts. End crafts are not electronic. There is a kind of universal, simple way of speaking about things.
CC: The word ‘losange‘ is French for lozenge, which is a thin rhombus shape (◊) otherwise referred to as a diamond. Kilim rugs are traditionally rectangular. Why did you choose the unconventional lozenge shape for your rugs’
EB: There is an important book, by Christopher Alexander [co-authored by Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein] called A Pattern Language. There is a part of the book in which there is a nice text about what he calls ‘sitting in circle.’ He explains that for him, a living room has to be arranged and settled with a kind of sitting circle. He says it’s best to organise the sofa and the armchairs like a gigantic circle because people sitting inside those elements will face each other and they will feel a certain shared volume that belongs to the circle. And for people who pass through the living room and don’t want to enter the circle, because they are going to another room, it’s easier to walk around a circle than it is to walk around a square shape. So of course that’s quite a mental vision but it’s why we made the carpet in a more circular form. It’s like having the fireplace, something to gather around.
CC: And how many of them have been made’
EB: I’m not completely sure but their first presentation was in January at Maison et Objet in Paris, and I think 100 of them have been ordered by Nanimarquina. I would estimate that ten years from now there will be somewhere between 5-10 thousand of them.
CC: While the technique used for the Losanges rugs is decidedly Middle Eastern, the lozenge shape is often used in French parquetry. Would you say that your work has a distinctly French character or aesthetic’
EB: I don’t know so much about French Culture. I’m not a specialist of l’art décoratif or something like this. The Losange carpet is particularly strange because it’s difficult to say which time it belongs to. If I told you that I collected it in Thailand for example, you would believe me. It’s strange the way that this carpet is quite natural to everyone and also a little bit of a UFO. It’s unusual for Ronan and I when an object is in a strange position or gap like this, which can’t be defined.
CC: Do you think it has a different feel to your other work’
EB: Yes and no. We always try to think project by project. So we always try to find the logic of the project within it’s own problematic. When we do a number of chairs with the same manufacturer, for example, we use certain traditions. This kilim technology, made in Pakistan, might seem somehow more special than what we do usually but that’s due more to the context of the project than to a conscious decision to make something different.
CC: Your studio is in Belleville in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. Belleville is a gritty, inner-city neighborhood that is home to large immigrant communities, especially Muslims and Jews from North Africa and Vietnamese and ethnic Chinese from Indochina. Up until the 90s there was not much happening in that quartier: it was not exactly a hub of Parisian design. Given Belleville’s central location, every year more bars, clubs and restaurants seem to spring up in the area. Even so, it remains quite unpretentious and working class. When did you set up your studio in Belleville’ Why did you choose that neighborhood’
EB: We set up here four years ago and for ten years before that we were living and working in Saint-Denis, a suburb in the north of Paris. Belleville is an area that is still quite available and affordable. It’s also quite messy and what I love the most about the fact that it is messy is that when things are messy there are less rules because the rules are not visible because there are too many elements disguising them. You can become quite invisible in this environment. There are a lot of people there, a lot of poor people, and a lot of bad industrial design… bad glass, bad plates, bad homeware. On one hand it’s quite sad for the logic which lies behind, but at the same time I suppose it is good that there is an industry which makes things incredibly cheap and available for everyone.
CC: Do you draw inspiration from your surroundings’
EB: I never know where my external inspiration comes from. Most of the time the work comes from solving obvious questions, so I can’t really quote a book, or film, or something that’s been driving my work. What I could say about Belleville is that there are many colours, many shapes, so many different details everywhere. There is a certain freedom of meaning here around Belleville. It is a magical part of the city where there are so many different things that nobody looks especially at you because everybody is somehow special. That’s very different to other parts of Paris where it looks like there is a colour code for everything. It’s an atmosphere which is like a gigantic circus, and it’s quite interesting to be in the circus.
CC: You and Ronan are brothers since birth and business partners since 1999. How did your plan to collaborate as creative partners materialise’
EB: There was no real plan. It’s funny because it’s typically American or Australian to describe it as a business relationship but it was really not like that. Nothing was especially planned. We were so young. I was in Art School and I had started to work. He needed some help on a project that he was engaged in. Then some other projects stemmed from this, and it seemed like we were working at the same level and participating equally in the projects. I was 22 years old when I had my first product produced by Cappellini. We never calculated anything; we were too young to make any plan. There was no clear decision that we should work together. We just entered into the cloud and it just happened.
CC: In one interview your brother said that when he was younger he wanted to grow up to be a footballer. Did you always want to be a designer’
EB: When I was about 15 I was really fascinated by indie pop music; for me those people were really heroes. They were really young and making music by themselves, learning on their own and making music with a real independence. And these were the first people that taught me that art could be a certain action. For me, what they were singing was so important. Their independence, and the idea that they could do everything for themselves really impressed me. I think that music is one of the things that you can really understand when you are young, probably more than art.
CC: You collaborated with Nani Marquina for the Losanges Project. You have also taken on numerous design projects in the past with external collaborators ‘ to name a few, see collaborations with fashion designer Issey Miyake and more recently, Alessi and Camper. Has collaboration played an important role in your success’
EB: The collaborative process in design is fundamental. Each time we send out our drawings, that’s really only the starting point of the project – even if it takes us a year to make these early drawings. There are many people who are fundamental in our lives and in our work. Amongst the most influential are Mr Rolf Fehlbaum at Vitra, Giulio Cappellini was really important for us, and Mr Perazza from Magis. We have quite an intimate relation with most of the companies that we work with, and with the people that drive these companies. They are all driven by a small number of people who are all highly engaged in the project.
CC: Have these collaborations enhanced or inhibited your creative freedom’
EB: We’ve always had a lot of creative freedom. We still have some unfinished projects just because we couldn’t stay in the borders that our clients expected us to stay in. But again, that was because we were really young so we were quite naive, and with this naivety we made lots of proposals. We were so open-minded, we considered everything possible. Many of our clients were surprised by some of our proposals. Now that we have done so many projects and so many of them have been well received, I think that some of our clients believe us quite a lot and maybe that’s not always the best. In the beginning, we were questioned more by the people who we were working with. Now people expect a more definitive point of view from us. Now we have more overall freedom in being able to control more parts of the project – the communication, the pictures, and the way that you show the project, this way or that way.
CC: Your work has been exhibited and celebrated all over the globe, from London to Los Angeles, and Luxembourg to Milan. You have turned your design talents to many different applications, objects and innovations, experimenting with a diverse range of materials to expand creative possibilities. Has there been a favourite project, or conversely has there been one that was particularly difficult’
EB: I don’t have a favourite. Sometimes there are some projects where they are not real at all. For example, when we started to make the clouds in polystyrene [see Image 3], that’s something that we did in the early beginning for some exhibition, they were not possible at all in real life, they were a kind of fantasy. But in a way they have brought a DNA that we have since used every time in our work, because they were just so full of a certain freedom. There is a continuity in our projects that links them all together.
CC: What are you working on at the moment’
EB: Too many projects and I’m running late on all of them.
CC: Sustainability and environmental impact are serious concerns for contemporary designers. How is your approach to design influenced by these concerns’
EB: We’ve always really questioned what we were doing, in terms of ‘Is it strong enough”, ‘Is it beautiful enough”, ‘Is it something that has enough of its own character” and ‘Is it something worth producing” It’s not something that I’ve always necessarily thought in terms of sustainability but it is a real key to sustainability. To be sustainable, we need to produce better, and buy less. We need to surround ourselves with better objects and then stick to them, and stop buying, and buying, and buying, and buying. That’s one of the main problems. So our main concern is to design beautiful, long-lasting objects.
CC: What would you like to be working on in ten years time’
EB: I am interested in helping people re-organise their working space, and re-organise their living space. In our work, we have been developing solutions to the questions, ‘How do you deal with Architecture” and ‘How do you create a separation, or a kind of wall” and ‘How do you customise an interior space to suit your needs” We have done some nice work in this area but in ways that are often perceived as unrealistic. What I mean is that they might be too expensive for some. And though people are really surprised by them and like them, at the same time people don’t use them on a large scale because they are still too afraid of them or not ready for them.
For information on the Losanges collection in Australia see KE-ZU furniture suppliers.