Music Studio 5 – Erwan Bouroullec’s wireless speaker for Samsung – is made to be heard, not seen
The French industrial designer has scaled down his sculptural wireless speaker to its bare necessities for a seamless device fit for any interior.
As a teenager in Brittany, Erwan Bouroullec was a fan of UK rock music and saved up for a stereo on which to play tapes by bands such as Ride and Slowdive. “They taught me that you don’t need to ask for permission – you can just do things,” he tells Monocle. This free-spirited approach has stood him in good stead throughout his career as an industrial designer, working on furniture, stained glass and beyond. His Paris-based practice’s latest challenge? Music Studio 5, a line of wireless speakers for Samsung.
When Bouroullec started working on the project, he realised that speakers had lost their sense of tactility in the Bluetooth era. “You mostly don’t need to interact with them at all,” he says. In response, he decided to pare back Music Studio 5 to its essential elements. The circle and the dot on the front draw attention to the forms of the device’s high-frequency and bass speakers; the technical components, meanwhile, are concealed behind a fine metal mesh.
This sculptural speaker is designed not to be hidden away but to blend in with its surroundings. “I try to make things that are universal, avoiding ideas that are stuck in a certain time or culture,” he says. The result is a device that will enhance any domestic space, whether it’s an elegantly appointed living room or the bedroom of a teenage rock-music fan.
