Alcôve Love Seat de Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec pour Vitra. thermomètre domestique pour optimiser sa consommation d’énergie. Une volonté de ne pas suivre de mot d’ordre en s’affranchissant des codes et des barrières. Quitte à flirter avec les frontières du design en travaillant plus sur la forme que sur le fond. Mais pour Gérard Laizé ce temps-là semble révolu. « Si le métier a eu tendance à évoluer vers des démarches esthétisantes, nous assistons aujourd’hui à un retour des valeurs élémentaires du design. « Cette génération s’est imprégnée des problématiques de son temps et, de ce fait, peut poser les vraies questions de l’époque, quitte à prendre le contre-pied afin de bousculer les choses établies ». Retour à l’essentiel Une vision qui voit le retour d’un design plus fonctionnel, mais aussi et surtout des principes d’ergonomie. La démarche est d’être plus proche de l’utilisateur, tout en dénonçant les abus d’une société tournée vers l’hyperconsommation et l’hyperproduction en intégrant des facteurs environnementaux dans chaque projet. On parle alors de développement durable, d’économie de moyen, de matières naturelles. Oui, mais pas seulement. La technologie a aussi son mot à dire et participe pleinement au renouveau du genre. « La plus grande maîtrise des matières naturelles et des techniques se traduit par une plus grande parcimonie de leur utilisation qui génère un parti pris créatif formel naturellement épuré, résultat d’une justesse de trait qui veut aller à l’essentiel ». Les années bling-bling sont déjà loin derrière nous, et c’est tant mieux ! * Valorisation de l’Innovation dans l’Ameublement. -/Valorisation of Innovation in Furnishings. PAUL TAHON AND R&E BOUROULLEC -/Mathieu Lehanneur, Ora-ïto, Jaime Hayon, Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance, Philippe Nigro, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec… apart from their age – all in their thirties – what do they have in common ? Nothing ! And that’s precisely what characterises this new generation of designers. "They subscribe to no specifically identifiable movement," explains Gérard Laizé, director of VIA*. It’s a subject he’s well versed in since one of the VIA’s missions is to discover and help talented youngsters by giving them grants to finance their research and projects. "They’ve each established their own reference points by developing their individual formal languages." No school, no movement, just a tremendous freedom of expression through which they strive to exist in a society perpetually seeking newness and personality. Using humour, poetry, image cult and a certain amount of sheer nerve. No watchwords The champion of the genre is Ora-ïto, who back in the 1990s began drawing attention to himself by attacking his generation’s iconic brands, subverting Gucci, Vuitton, Nike and even Apple by creating virtual accessories without bothering about trademarks or copyright. A successful publicity stunt since those plagiarised lauded his talent and audacity instead of taking him to court ! Today he zaps without a second thought, collaborating with Heineken, Renault, Bic, Zanotta, Visa, Pink TV and Le Cab nightclub in Paris. He’s by no means the only one. Mathieu Lehanneur, less cheeky and more poetic, works on scenic design for Fondation Cartier one day and the next revisits the cocktail shaker for Bombay Sapphire ; he’s designed hutches for stray cats for the Chat Libres charity and a home thermometer for controlling energy consumption for EDF. This translates a desire not to be bound by watchwords, to free themselves from codes and barriers even to the extent of flirting with the frontiers of design by working more on formthan content. But Gérard Laizé feels the end is in sight for this approach. "Although the profession has been tending to evolve in the direction of aesthetic motivation, we’re now seeing design’s elementary values resurfacing again. This generation has taken on board its era’s problems so can ask the questions relevant to these times and is even prepared to be controversial in order to shakeup established values." Back to essentials This vision brings a return to more functional design but more importantly to ergonomic principles too. The aim is to be more in synch with the end-users while still denouncing the abuses of a society guilty of overconsumption and overproduction, by incorporating environmental factors into every project. The talk is of sustainable development, economy of means, natural materials. But not exclusively since technology also has its say and is fully participating in this design revival. "A greater mastery of natural materials and techniques is translating into a more parsimonious use of them that is generating a naturally pared formal creative bias, the result of apposite conception focused on essentials." The bling-bling years are already behind us, and so much the better ! Glass Table signé Front Design pour Moooi. mai 2009 www.cotemagazine.com DESIGN GÉNÉRATION 30/39 73