Marvelous Marcel
Published in Clear Magazine
MARVELOUS MARCEL
Star Designer and Everybody's Latest Favorite — Marcel Happens to be Our Favorite Too
TEXT: Lori Fredrickson
“To create an environment of love, live with passion, and make our most exciting dreams come true.” This is the proclaimed mission statement of Marcel Wanders Studio, a name famed for quirkily creative, if not irresistibly histrionic, design — who else would have imagined the Airborne Snotty Vase, inspired by the microscopic design of drops expelled from a sneeze? So whether your dream is to step into the lap of luxury, greeted by a hyper-stylized virtual welcoming committee, or to be served Veuve Cliquot at your next party by a beautiful dancer suspended from a champagne chandelier, Wanders is ready to make it come true with the opening of the highly anticipated Mondrian South Beach Hotel Residences and the famed Happy Hour Chandelier.
What’s the biggest Marcel Wanders project at the moment?
We’re finalizing work for the Milano exhibition [Salone del Mobile, April]. This is a series of experiments that I’ve been working on for a long time, and it’s the first time that we really want to share it with a large audience.
What do you mean by, “experiments”?
I think a lot of people have known me for a long time for doing experimental work. The core of what we do in the studio, is experiment, to truly innovate the market, to come up with new ideas, new thoughts and visions for design. We hope to do it for large audiences, but these pieces are all limited editions, and at the moment this is what we’re celebrating. A good example of one of your most experimental works would be Happy Hour Chandelier... Happy Hour Chandelier is really an artistic event, more than a work. My girlfriend [a choreographer] and I came up with this together. Every two weeks, we’d bring it to a party somewhere in the world, the most beautiful and fun parties, go there with the chandelier and just have a great time. I think that design isn't about how technology might change the production of furniture. Design is about humanity and the excitement we have for our lives, and the why and how we create our days to be more special and more festive. Happy Hour Chandelier supported this, creating things that are new and are going to excite people and make them feel alive.
Is incorporating events and experiences into your design work something you hope to pursue further?
I’ve always tried to have experience be a guidemap. I’m not the type of designer who’s really interested in construction and technology. I’m more interested in my audience and their experience, and how to make that more exciting. I think it makes sense to use all our senses to communicate. I call myself a designer and I design objects, but it doesn’t mean I can only talk in the design of products. I’m trying to find all the ways I can to go to the heart and heads of my audience. Theater is a beautiful instrument to reach people, so why not use it?
How do your new projects connect with this idea? The other limited-edition experiments that you’re unveiling in Milan?
The chair on the cover [of this issue of Clear] was a project in the area of transparency and fragility. Projects like this take a long, long time — I’ve been working on it, among other projects, for three and a half years. It took a stupid amount of activity to create it. But I think more and more there’s a need for these things. The design market, the design value, has grown. More and more people tend to think that design is an important contribution to their lives. If you can see it as a pyramid, imagine that as the base is growing in a horizontal way, there’s an extra need for the pyramid to grow in a vertical way. We need to come up with an idea of higher-end design that is more personal, more residual–to support the growth of design as a whole.
This addresses a need you see in design, on a larger level. How do you tie that in with your own philosophy, what you need to accomplish for yourself?
My understanding of what the world is and what it needs is changing every day. I was very sure about what I wanted to say, twenty years ago, but wasn’t sure how loudly I should speak it—as I grow older, I feel that what I have to say is important and valuable, and I don’t feel that there’s a need to hold back. And the more you grow old, the easier it is to forget that it’s the things at the end that count. I value durable objects, and I care about creating them so that they will be important as objects. To create a design that’s more romantic and emotional. Ten years ago, I sat down and I made a list of the ten most important ideas behind my work. And then read them and went, oh man! I’ve always been busy, now I’m going to be super super busy! But then I started looking at what I was working on. I realized that about 60 percent of the projects didn’t make sense, didn’t synchronize with my values and my goals in life. And I really stopped about 60 percent of the work I was doing. Now, I have two lists. I have a list of my goals. And I have another list, which is constantly evolving, of what the world thinks they need. I want to find a way to connect myself, so that the work I do isn’t only of interest to me but to a larger group. I think design is a value for life. And in the end it’s about making that value higher—to elevate the whole idea of what design is.
