 |
|
Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec’s sketch of the “Vegetal Chair” (2005) |
Ever wondered how a designer goes about coming up with a new chair, teapot or airplane? I have, so I was curious to see “Dessiner le Design” (“Drawing Design,” through January 10) at …
|
|
|
Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec’s sketch of the “Vegetal Chair” (2005) |
Ever wondered how a designer goes about coming up with a new chair, teapot or airplane? I have, so I was curious to see “Dessiner le Design” (“Drawing Design,” through January 10) at Paris’s Musée des Arts Décoratifs, which walks visitors through some of the steps of the creative process of a number of important designers: Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Pierre Charpin, Marc Newson, Jasper Morrison, Konstantin Grcic, Naoto Fukasawa, Pierre Paulin, Mathieu Lehanneur, Laurent Massaloux, Benjamin Graindorge and François Brument.
While the exhibition didn’t really answer the question, it was interesting to see how the process works. The show presents drawings and plans from the different stages of the process of creating a specific object, along with a color photo (it would have been nice if they were larger) of the finished project. Surprisingly, many of today’s hotshot designers still love to draw by hand and use multiple drawings as a way of working out their ideas for a new piece, in one case doodled on an envelope (complete with someone’s jotted phone number).
We also get a lot of reflections on the importance of drawing, which turn out to be similar to reflections on writing. Henri Matisse defined drawing as “thought clarified.” Marc Newson sees his sketchbook as a diary. Laurent Massaloux says his pencil drawings are “inspirational, exploratory, like taking a walk on paper.” For Pierre Charpin, drawing helps “evacuate everything that encumbers us.”
Visitors can sit on some of the chairs created by the featured designers while watching video presentations detailing the extremely complex process of developing even a seemingly simple product like Morrison’s “Folding Air Chair.” Thus you learn by trying that Grcic’s “360°” office chair on wheels with a narrow seat (his sketches of people sitting on it in every imaginable way are on show) is uncomfortable and feels unstable, and that the Bouroullec brothers’ much-vaunted “Vegetal Chair” is less comfortable than it looks, while their injected polycarbonate “Papyrus” chair is apparently rather fragile – one of the museum guards told me that he had already broken one of them by leaning back in it.
For the uninitiated, the show offers a glimpse inside the process, while for designers, seeing these drawings is the equivalent of a seeing the original manuscript of a favorite writer’s novel or composer’s score.
Once you have learned something about the design process, you can see some of the results in another field – fashion – by taking in another of the museum’s exhibitions, “Madeleine Vionnet: Puriste de la Mode” (through January 3), on the work of this queen of couture, famous for her use of the bias cut, who, along with Coco Chanel, helped free women from the confines of stays and corsets and the inconvenience of long, full skirts in the early 20th century. Many of Vionnet’s simple designs, based on geometric shapes, would look perfectly fashionable if worn today, while others will remind you of the gorgeous, glamorous gowns worn by the likes of Ginger Rogers and Myrna Loy in Hollywood films of the 1930s.
Note: the Musée des Arts Décoratifs is also holding an exhibition of the posters of Toulouse Lautrec (through January 3).
Musée des Arts Décoratifs: 107, rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris. Métro: Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre. Tel : 01 44 55 57 50. Open Tues.-Fri., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. (until 9 p.m. on Thurs.); Sat.-Sun., 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Admission: €8. www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr/
Buy related books and films from the Paris Update store.
More reviews of Paris art shows.
Reader Reaction
Click here to respond to this article (your response may be published on this page and is subject to editing).
© 2009 Paris Update
Favorite