artists/designers that inspire me

Haughty and imposing, Hyatt by Ettore Sottsass suggests the structure of a classical column, with a “capital” equal at the base. It is an object that does not go unobserved, due to its opulence and the use of fine materials like briar. Hyatt relies on the masterful interaction of cylindrical forms with a symmetrical silhouette shaped by the identic... See more

Pierpaolo gently puts the camera away in its large case and takes out the latest issue of Toiletpaper . When shooting images for the magazine, he prefers to go digital. “We use the camera more like a video. We move around the object, we move around the set, we go in and out, we observe our setting from multiple angles. The digital camera allows for... See more

The first school is represented by “classic designers,” such as my friends Dieter Rams and Kenji Ekuan, the late Ettore Sottsass, Jr., Mario Bellini, and Jonathan Ives. These designers can run their own studios or be corporate stars. Ten or fifteen years ago, I would have included myself in this group. This school’s approach to design is both logic

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The initial idea for the Vegetal chair in 2004 was to create a piece of furniture that appeared as if it had grown naturally, like a plant. For inspiration, its designers, the French brothers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, looked to historic furniture that integrated a sense of organic growth: English garden chairs constructed in boughs of cast iron; ... See more

The Austrian-born, Italian-based designer Ettore Sottsass (1917-2007) was a rebel with a cause. As a counter-force to Modernism, his designs raged against a post-war rationalist approach that largely excluded emotional values by prizing function above form. Instead, Sottsass’s primary focus was social, cultural and sensorial – a design currency tha... See more

“This is what I learned from Italian designers: the wish for a better world in mass production, and the wish for a world of diversity from craft, and how to find the treasure in all of this.” – Ronan Bouroullec