marc newson interview

marc newson interview. he is one of the world’s most accomplished and influential self-taught architect and designer..................................................

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marc newson

was born 1963 in sydney, australia.
he is one of the world’s most accomplished and influential self-taught
architect and designer.
1984 he graduated at the sydney college of the arts in jewellery and
sculpture. in 1986 he was awarded a grant from the australian crafts
council, and staged a first exhibition - featuring the lockheed lounge -
at the roslyn oxley gallery in sydney.
1987 newson moved to tokyo, where he lived and worked to 1991.
teruo kurosaki's company, idée, manufactured such pieces as the
'orgone lounge', 'black hole' table and 'felt' chair, which were widely
exhibited in asia and europe.
1991 newson set up a studio in paris in 1991, started to work for italian
manufacturers - for flos (for lighting), and for cappellini (furniture).
in 1997 newson moved to london, where he and his partner benjamin
de haan set up marc newson ltd.
as a larger studio capable of tackling more ambitious industrial projects.
newson has had a prolific, international career and is something
of a phenomenon.
many of his furniture, lighting, glassware and household object designs
have already achieved a culturally significant status, with design
curators from moma, sfmoma, vitra design museum and london's
design museum snatching them up for their permanent collections.
his work has also infiltrated the ultra-hip world of pop culture,
appearing in madonna's videos, austin powers film and many other
movie sets...

(see also the designboom portrait of marc newson
http://www.designboom.com/portrait/newson.html)

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more info on the design work of marc newson
http://www.marc-newson.com
http://www.alessi.com
http://www.bebitalia.com
http://www.biomega.dk
http://www.cappellini.com
http://www.eandw.com
http://www.flos.net
http://www.idee.co.jp
http://www.ikepod.com
http://ww.magis.com

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we met marc newson in milan on april 9, 2003.
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what is the best moment of the day?
.....ummmmmm.... siesta time. I suppose. (ha)
after lunch. you know when you start to fall asleep.
you know (makes snoring noise)...

what kind of music do you listen to at the moment?
I've always listened to a lot of film music, actually.
ah..you know.. no particular films, but just I like film music
for some weird reason.

do you listen to the radio?
(cough) never. I like the idea of it though.

what books do you have on your bedside table?
oh none, because I don't have a bedside table.
I don't even have a bed. I'm staying at a friends house since
... (undistinguishable)

do you read design magazines?
never.

where do you get news from? newspapers?
newspapers.
I do read newspapers, and occasionaly when I'm staying at hotels
in different countries I end up watching CNN unfortunately.

do you notice how women are dressing?
do you have any preferences?
yeah, I think I do. but I don't have particular preferences in terms of
what they wear. I think it's more a question of how they wear it.
you know like, there's many different looks and I think you can wear
any look really really well, I mean if it suits you.
if you wear it well, if your good in your clothes.
I guess it's more a question of confidence.

what kind of clothes do you avoid wearing?
I never wear a suit, but you know I have to sit with a lot of people who do...
not that there's anything wrong with wearing suits,
but you know, generally the people that tend to wear them are...
more boring than the ones that don't.

do you have any pets?
I do not have any pets. no, but I'd really love to have a dog,
if I didn't travel so much.

when you were a child, what did you want to be?
I was fascinated by the idea of making things.

where do you work on your designs and projects?
I work alot on my designs and projects on aeroplanes.
I know that sounds really clichéd... boring, but to be honest with you,
it's really the only moments that i have when there's kind of really
nothing going on, it's kind of like being in a sensory deprivation tank,
if you don't have to watch the shit films that they have of course.
....but you know especially on long world trips to japan or something...
15 hours on a plane is a perfect time to really immerse yourself in a project.

when you're working, do you discuss or exchange ideas with colleagues,
with other designers?
very rarely in fact.
because I find that I normally work the best when I'm on my own,
when I'm in a perfectly kind of silent eviornment.
and the most important thing for me is not to have any stress around,
so in fact when I'm with my colleagues which is to say the people I work
with in my office, I don't do design.
I don't design in my office ever....
I answer the telephone, I read email. I work.
I develop designs, I engineer designs on a computer,
but that's not where the ideas are born.

describe your style, like a good friend of yours would describe it.
I don't even know if there are any good friends that could describe,
stylistically what I do. I've never heard anyone describe, what I do, umm,
very well. but (cough) it...
my aim is not... I don't...it's just so hard stylistically to kind of classify
what I do. I just dont think there is any..., sometimes it's round,
sometimes it's less round... sometimes it's colors.

the point is with my design, with what I do, whether it's design or
whether it's art, because I do everything from designing airplane interiors,
which is like on one level really pure engineering
(ok theres a bit of design there, but it's mostly engineering).
on the other end of the spectrum, I'm designing sculptures,
things like the lockheed lounge, there's a whole lot of limited edition
pieces that I designed that are being sold at auctions, and things like that...
... now that's my fantasy, that's my pure... emotion just running wild.

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no-ones telling me what to do, no-ones's telling me how to do it.
so I have both of those things at each end of the spectrum, and I'm
doing everything in between from wristwatches to interiors to suitcases
to toilets.

do you think there is an evolution from the begining of your work
until now, in your thoughts, in your forms?
yeah, of course there is, there is a sort of an evolution.
the problem with the word evolution I guess, is that it implies that there
is an end, that you know it's going...
wel,l it's gonna end up somewhere, and I don't know where it's gonna
end up. it's evolving, but I don't know where.
it's changing. although at the same time I think there's a thread you know,
I think there's a link there's something which attaches each thing I do together,
like a thread... I hope... that's consistency.

do you have fun working?
sometimes, not all the time.
you know the the big difference between what I do know, and what I did ten
years ago, is that now it's really a job, now I have people working for me,
now I have a company, now I have responsibilities, now I have to sit in
really boring meetings...
I often find myself in situations though I ask myself what I'm doing there.
so there are aspects of what I do, that I don't like, but that's part of mass
production and industry.

which project has given you the most satisfaction?
it's impossible for me to isolate one particular project that's given me the
most satisfaction. there are many projects that I've done, that I'm happy with.
in fact I'm happy with everything I've done. becasue if I wasn't happy with it...
- it takes two to three years to develop a project, and that's two to three years -
if you're not happy with it you kill it... you know (poof) it doesn't happen...
it happens, if it's not going well. only about 70 % of my works come to an end.
you know it's a hell of a lot of work... two or three years.
I'm a big believer in not trying to... uhhh... correct something which is broken.
I believe that you just forget it and start again.

is there any designer and/or architect, you appreciate a lot?
yeah there are many...ummm.
there are really a lot actually when I think about it, people like bruno munari,
many artists actually more so than designers.
although of course I'm fans of people like castiglioni and and other people
from his generation.

and those still active, are there any particular ones you appreciate?
you probably might be surprised when I mention people like the
bouroullec brothers or jasper morrison, or... the usual suspects.

what are you afraid of regarding the future ?
I think I'm afraid of the freneticism, that the kind of hyper-activity that we're
kind of heading towards, that the sort of inhumanity in terms of the way
we work and the way we live our lives, that we're kind of ending up in a
point where you know we kind of lose ourselves, and forget ourselves,
or forget what we like doing and how we like to live.

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I look at it from a personal point of view, where you know you often
find yourself in situations, and you don't know why, and the amount of
control that you lose becasue of the way society is structured.