The Monocle Minute
On Design

How do we create cities that deliver on quality of life for everyone? Nic Monisse highlights some key urbanism takeaways that you might want to think about before your next project. Plus: we steel ourselves to revisit a classic set of 1960s enamelware and head to Paris Design Week, where the French connection is in full swing. Allons-y!

As part of Paris Design Week, Le French Design by VIA, a government-backed organisation that promotes innovation in furniture and interiors, is showcasing the projects that it has been supporting in 2023. The company’s Incubateur programme (pictured), which launched in 2016, pairs designers with established manufacturers to help them create new furniture. It also provides participants with training, advice and access to a network of experts. This year’s exhibition, which runs until 27 October, features 13 design duos and takes place in the 11th arrondissement, in a space curated by local multidisciplinary firm Studio Briand & Berthereau.

Notable pairs at the show include Atelier Mesure and industrial designer Mickaël Connin, who joined forces to create a wooden armchair, and Avoriaz-based manufacturers Pierre & Vacances and Bold Design, which worked together to create a table suitable for holiday homes. The pièce de résistance is a work by furniture brand Kiwitik Christelle Lucas in collaboration with Couzeix-based manufacturer Vorevbois. The two firms created easy-to-assemble, modular wooden furniture that can be adapted to suit various functions. With the help of industry partners and government support, this is the kind of programme that we would like to see replicated elsewhere.
lefrenchdesign.org

Visit Le French Design Incubateur during Paris Design Week at 120 avenue Ledru-Rollin, Paris.

Savvy design brands usually time the opening of their new boutiques, shops and outposts in the French capital to coincide with Paris Design Week. This year one such retail development is the official opening of L’Objet’s flagship shop in the bohemian Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighbourhood. Founded in 2004 by Israeli creative director Elad Yifrach, the brand specialises in handcrafted tableware, home décor and fragrances inspired by a globetrotting lifestyle.

To reflect this ethos, Yifrach joined forces with Milan-born, Los Angeles-based architect Costantino di Sambuy, founder of Anno Mille, to create a space that riffs on Mediterranean aesthetics with a contemporary twist. The result is a shop with cast-bronze details, a recurring scalloped motif and cabinetry that plays off the neutral-hued limestone-plaster finish of the space. “Paris has long been a centre of culture,” says Yifrach. “With this boutique, we invite Parisians to discover the artistry that defines L’Objet. It’s an exciting new chapter for our brand and we can’t wait to unveil the treasures that await within.”
l-objet.com

Visit L'Objet during Paris Design Week at 30 rue Jacob, Paris.

How do you measure real impressions and create campaigns with cut-through? It takes more than a social-media strategy – just ask Aurelia Rauch, creative director at Bergos. Rauch is responsible for shaping the branding, communications, marketing and advertising strategy of the Zürich-based private bank. Prior to joining the company in 2018, she was a fixture of New York’s creative scene, most recently at Sperone Westwater gallery. Rauch joined us for The Monocle Quality of Life Conference in Munich last week, where she told us why creating brand campaigns that raise eyebrows can be a good thing.

How did you end up leading the creative team of a Swiss independent bank that is renowned for its snappy advertising, clean graphics and playful typography?
I studied art history and theology but my underlying qualification is my understanding of art. The first piece that I admired was by the Venetian Renaissance painter Titian; it shows Mary being carried up to heaven. The motivation behind it was that the Church wanted to inspire you to change your behaviour. When it came to motivating people to aspire to something, the Church did that extremely well. And that is what good branding does. It gives you that feeling of “This is it – whatever it takes, I want that.”

One of your favourite advertisements is a supersize poster by Manhattan Mini Storage from 2011. What appeals to you about it?
The campaign ran in the lead-up to the vote to legalise same-sex marriage and had the slogan “If you don’t like gay marriage, don’t get gay married” printed on giant billboards all over the city. When I asked somebody who worked at Manhattan Mini Storage why it decided to do this, they said, “What we do is in our name. We don’t need to explain it. You either need storage or you don’t.” They realised that they couldn’t push anyone into using their services so they used their campaign for something good instead. That’s a good direction for a branding approach. Plus, the huge scale of the posters, with such an amusing, contentious slogan on them, made the campaign extremely effective, doing something that a quarter-page ad in a newspaper couldn’t.

How would you describe your approach to branding and graphic design for Bergos?
We focus completely on text ads. We don’t use imagery. Text has a magic to it as you just hear your own voice in your head. It doesn’t try to dictate things to you in the way that an ad with a picture of someone gazing into the future does. We also don’t have a physical product to sell, so the written word works best. A bold typeface gets the message across in such an immediate and resonant way.

For more from Aurelia Rauch, tune in to ‘Monocle on Design’.

Here’s a plate that you couldn’t break even if you tried. In the 1960s a line of primary-colour tableware designed by New York-based Leif Wessman Associates was produced in Norway for Knoll. Made of thin stainless steel and coated on the upward-facing side with an opaque layer of enamel, the dishes bring a pop of colour to any setting. The result not only can survive being dropped but also improves with age as the enamel coating develops a slight patina with use.

Knoll has long since ceased production of the plates and the output of enamelware has significantly dwindled in Europe. Today few factories employ the traditional technique because the manufacturing process, which involves fusing a glass-and-chemical mixture to metal at up to 850C, is not environmentally friendly. But taking into account how many porcelain plates shatter every day (and that so much of Knoll’s enamel wares from the 1960s still remain intact), the long-lasting method might be sustainable in its own right.

French furniture company Tolix was founded in 1927 and quickly became a popular brand for use in restaurants, bars and homes, thanks to its durable, stackable steel seating. Its most recognisable models are the industrial T37 (pictured), made for the 1937 World Expo in Paris, and the UD chair, designed for the University of Dijon in Burgundy. Both of these metal designs are on show as part of Paris Design Week at Galerie Voltaire in the 7th arrondissement, where they are being unveiled in white, black and green.

The release marks a renaissance for Tolix. In 2022 the company was given a new lease of life when entrepreneurial duo Antoine Bejui and Emmanuel Diemoz purchased it. As well as honouring the company’s archive, Tolix is now working with emerging designers and fans of the brand will be hoping that these collaborations will ensure its continued revival.
tolix.com

Visit Tolix at Galerie Voltaire during Paris Design Week at 15 quai Voltaire, Paris.

Japanese-American artist and landscape architect Isamu Noguchi was first exposed to Greek culture during his childhood when his mother read him classical mythology. As an adult, Noguchi would repeatedly return to the Mediterranean country on a quest for Pentelic marble, one of his favourite materials to sculpt with. Now, Athens- and New York-based Eleni Petaloti and Leonidas Trampoukis of architecture and design studio Objects of Common Interest have gathered information from Noguchi’s time in Greece, from his first visit in 1949 until his death in 1988, and turned it into a highly covetable book.

Published by Los Angeles-based Atelier Éditions, Noguchi and Greece, Greece and Noguchi is a two-volume set, including texts, sketches and more than 120 photographs that trace the designer’s time in the place that he considered his “intellectual home”. As a transnational team, it made sense for Petaloti and Trampoukis to examine Noguchi’s connection with Greece, how it influenced his work and his involvement with local practitioners. The pair also commissioned writers such as Hsiao-Yun Chu and Dakin Hart, senior curator of New York’s Noguchi Museum, to reinterpret the artist’s legacy across design and art practices today, both in Greece and further afield.
atelier-editions.com