The apparent modesty of Patrick Norguet veils a spirit animated by the concerns of perfection, detail and an object well-made. For the last 12 years, the designer with an atypical trajectory has thus engraved his name on the international design scene with strokes of precision, determination and discretion. He approached the object through an encounter with the industrial world before pursuing his design studies in Paris (ESDI), the man maintains the same privileged relationship with a production tool as with the beauty of forms. There is no place for the self-indulgent expression of the superego, ethereal concepts or media hype. A descendent of Roger Tallon, Castiglioni, and more recent, Alberto Meda, Patrick Norguet considers himself an industrial designer.He is radical in his search for purity, poetic in his sensibility of products and meticulous in his sense of detail. With him, there is no theorization of the design practice, no inclination for confrontation with the rules of good taste, no pursuit of a gratuitous archetype or a new typology without foundation, no quest for excess or unessential by principle.
Beyond the pursuit of the ideal line and elegant formal beauty, Patrick Norguet loves the factories, ateliers, materials and the artisans who implement them, as well as deciphering the techniques and processes, and a passion for innovation. He takes an empirical approach to each new project, by responding to the stakes of the firm rather than just the imperatives of contemporary communication. This mental structure is parallel to those of his creations that he likes to imagine dissected piece by piece, like a photo by Guido Mocafico.His taste for the beauty of the mechanical component, assemblage and functionality as well as his refusal for ornament – with the rare exception – sometimes leave us to think that he takes responsibility of the principles stated by Adolf Loos a century ago.However, his esthetic genes are more Nordic than Austrian and his temperament is quite French. With his sense of color, his formal restraint, his elegant purity coupled with character and his continual search for comfort, his work is in direct filiation with the canons of Nordic design.
Therefore, it’s not surprising that the designer develops creations with the Swedish brand, Offecct, or that he has assumed with finesse the torch of Pierre Paulin from the Dutch brand, Artifort. It is first and foremost to Italy that he owes his success. Primarily to Giulio Cappellini, who brought him to the limelight in 1999 by manufacturing his instant classic, Rainbow Chair, which is in the MoMA’s permanent collection, and Kristalia, Glas Italia, Poltrona Frau, Flaminia, Lapalma, Lea Ceramiche as well as Alias and Cassina, who see in the designer a real talent to imagine quality products that are also commercial and durable.Plunging with delight into the ADN of design manufacturers, this aesthetic experimenter is accustomed to extracting and rewriting the identity of each brand while sowing the grains of innovation. His professional experience is not foreign to this. Succeeding at the “school of Vuitton”, the designer had learned in his early years how to decipher brands by conceiving the scenography for Dior, Guerlain and Lanvin, as well as engaging complex interior architecture for Lancel.
At 43, Patrick Norguet is an essential yet discrete figure in the tricolor scene. Somewhat atypical, he doesn’t lend himself to the exercise of free expression in a gallery, on the contrary, he finds pleasure in the constraint around the creation of a high-end office as much as the lunch environment of a McDonald’s restaurant. His appetence for soft forms and understatement as well as his continual pursuit for the just form and color makes it one of his strengths that is perpetual and, at the same time, always on the tip of the French scene. Welcome to a new season greatly inspired by Japanese design traditions with a deep love for craftsmanship and simple details. Retro are also back at full blast with even more stunning reinterpretations of classical designs. Enter a world of sunlight and warmth. A world where imagination knows no boundaries! This season the Mini collection centres around an adventurous sea theme and the designs and illustrations are cuter than ever.
Design upholstery, functional storage and beautiful dining styles. Let the big changes in with our new AW16 furniture collection. The Bloomingville design philosophy can be conveyed in just four words. Not only because we love natural simplicity, but also because we’re deeply inspired by everyday designers – by how they, with great passion, keep their homes ever changing as a way to feel happy and alive. Click to learn more about our design philosophy, to meet the Creative Director and to connect on social media.This article was originally published in Domus 952, November 2011 After the mission to Fukushima and more than 20 years of service for Greenpeace, Rainbow Warrior II passes the baton to number III, launched in Bremen on 14 October. The new flagship is a highly sophisticated peace machine, designed to fly the colours of environmental sustainability as well as provide a hyper-technological bastion ofWe spoke about it with Greenpeace veteran Brian Fitzgerald.
Clemens Weisshaar: In the 1980s, Greenpeace gained incredibly heroic status by braving the whaling fleets, and Rainbow Warrior was an integral part of that mission. ways Greenpeace seems to have become more like the former enemy in terms of structure and Brian Fitzgerald: When I started we had no money and a less developed public profile, whereas now we've become a global institution with far greater power to influence change in the world. and '90s there was a sense that Greenpeace was a force for good in the world, that we should be strictly confrontational and not be sitting downOver the years we've adoptedToday we use lobbying and science, and we will actually sit down with a Rainbow Warrior is an interesting project because it comprises a sequence of designs that have become increasingly advanced from ship to ship. The spec sheet of the new Rainbow Warrior could also describe a superyacht.
This is our first purpose-built ship. used to refit old rusty trawlers, but over the years we've perfected a method of activism at sea that really doesn't exist anywhere else. to invent ways to do things like launch Zodiacs over the side incredibly quickly or deploy helicopters inOur supporters have given us the capital to build a ship purpose-designed for our actions. This includes using the ship as a communication tool in harbours, like a floating broadcasting platform hooked up to Twitter, Facebook and webcams as much as traditional media. The team of naval engineers at the Dutch firm Dykstra The "warrior" in the name of your flagship reflects Greenpeace's confrontational mode ofThe new Rainbow Warrior has a sort of panic room that contains the broadcasting equipment and will enable you to continue transmitting for 20 minutes even if the ship is being During Mitterrand's presidency we were opposing nuclear weapons testing at sea in Moruroa
and we were surrounded by French commandos who boarded us and impounded the ship. While they had the ship under arrest it was still broadcasting them throwing tear gas on the bridge and locking down the crew and the vessel. the scene of the crime and broadcast it as it happens. A big part of our beginnings was that we were able to show images of whales being killed at sea, which was something that had never been seen before. Whales were the key images around Greenpeace in the '80s. What is the new iconography now that our primary concern is the extinction of our own race? We've moved from being an organisation strictly focused on environmental concerns to recognising the importance of related economicOur new director Kumi Naidoo talks about climate justice and economic stability, because we also have to safeguard the world's ability to sustainClimate change is the biggest issue and it's a matter of urgency, but it's much
harder to convey than whales in front of a harpoon. That must translate into a rather complex scope for the new flagship. What are the plans for Rainbow Warrior's first year? First we are doing an extended tour to makeIt's a brand-new ship and we need to train up the crew. So after Europe she'll be doing a transatlantic to the Amazon, as this is one of the key forests we need to preserve to combatAt the Earth Summit in June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, the world community is going to have to account for the fact that very little progress has been made towards achieving the goals that were set ten years ago in the last summit. deforestation is an easier task than reinventing the way we power our homes, transport and the rest of I found the crowd-sourcing aspect of Rainbow Warrior's outfitting very intriguing, particularly that people could shop online for anything from a kettle to rather luxurious purchases like a navigation system.
And even a soap dish. One comment I read was, "I'm very pleased to have bought a soap dish onboard the Rainbow Warrior and look forward to telling my friends that it's not true that hippies If we consider the donors as shareholders in your shipping venture, which nation holds the greatest stake in Rainbow Warrior III? Traditionally our biggest funding forces have been the Germans, the Dutch and the Swiss, and I think the US comes in around fourth place. is a particular awareness about the importance of donations going to the places where the problems are, and that's not in Germanyit's in China, the Amazon and What is your relationship with the rapidly-developing BRIC economies? more of a threat to the world's climate than the The US is the biggest environmental problem right now, but our supporter base is growing phenomenally in the BRIC states. We are a putting a lot of effort into ensuring an increasingly strong