Interview

Konstantin Grcic originally studied to be a cabinetmaker, but a cabinetmaker rarely gets to revolutionize every single item stored within his cabinets. In his nearly 20-year career, Grcic has designed—or redesigned—an incredible variety of objects. After leaving JasperMorrison’s London studio in 1991, Grcic returned to his native Munich to found his own company on his own terms. He promptly earned attention and plenty of industrial assignments for elegant, deceptively simple designs, including a 2-HANDS laundry basket for the German company Authentics, and the now-iconic portable Mayday lamp for Flos.

In 2007, Grcic’s Chair_ONE for Magis entered the contemporary-design pantheon when it was selected for London’s Design Museum’s “25/25 Celebrating 25 Years of Design” exhibit. The chair is built from flat panes of red aluminum set at angles to each other; the 43-year-old Grcic compares its construction to a soccer ball. Turns out, this wouldn’t be his last engagement with sports equipment.

It’s virtually impossible, though, to define Grcic’s design aesthetic with a single object. He has signature work in the collections of MoMA and the Centre Pompidou, and collaborates with several forward-thinking industrial companies such as Muji, where he has applied his skills to simple objects including umbrellas and pens. For Grcic, design is serious business, but that doesn’t mean he’s above designing a garbage can. In fact, he has a reputation for incorporating discreet humor into his work. Take his brightly colored interlocking plant pots for Teracrea, which wouldn’t be out of place in a Japanese cartoon. Here, by phone from his Munich office, he talks about the beauty of imperfections, the genius in not knowing everything, and why his ultimate dream is to (re)design a bicycle.

Launch Mediaplayer »

DAVID COGGINS: You’re in Munich. Does that mean you’re a fan of the Bayern Munich football team?

KONSTANTIN GRCIC: Absolutely! [laughs]

COGGINS: You did pretty well recently in the Champions League tournament.

GRCIC: Well, that was against weak opponents.

COGGINS: If you play English teams, it’ll get tougher.

GRCIC: Yes, they’re the real McCoy.

COGGINS: I’m looking at this window design you just did for Hermès in Tokyo. Have you ever worked on an actual space before?

GRCIC: Yes, I have done that kind of work before. We never do interior design, but I’m interested in these kinds of ephemeral installations—like exhibitions—and a window display is a form of an exhibition. This is the second window I’ve done for Hermès in Tokyo, and I always enjoy these kinds of projects. They’re small and very playful. And the idea of a very public space, such as a shop window right in the heart of Tokyo, is fantastic. It has a big audience. And it’s a beautiful form of communication, of engagingpeople who walk past, and making them stop and stare. Behind the glass, we have quite a lot of freedom with this particular project. It’s a very open theme to do what we want—especially with the Japanese, who are such good collaborators. They really do everything to ensure that our design, our idea, gets executed in a beautiful way. They have a theme every year. This year it’s called The Beautiful Getaway.

COGGINS: The Beautiful Getaway?

GRCIC: [both laugh] Our window—we did it in January—was the first in a series that will be done under this theme. For this window, you need a strong idea that isn’t complicated, an idea that’s very easy to read, very graphic. With all of our other projects, we always have to take into consideration: How can this be made? We have a budget. We have a timeline. We also have this notion of what’s appropriate. It’s only going to be there for seven weeks. I quite like this condition as a context for work. So limitations or constraints can turn into positives.

COGGINS: Do you like designing for the general public, which is not necessarily a niche design audience? Do you like the chance to reach people who might not go to the Design Museum?

GRCIC: I like to do both. Sometimes it’s the most beautiful experience to reach a public that isn’t educated in design. When they respond to something we’ve designed, it means that we were—or that this product was—able to seduce or convince them. I think it’s very interesting, the relationship between an object and a person. But it’s also relevant and good to speak to a very specific audience, such as a designer designing for designers. I know it sounds terrible, like a really bad cliché and all that’s wrong about design, but actually I think there is a good side to it, because something that is hard to say, something avant-garde and ahead of its time, can only be realized by getting it across to a professional audience, where a designer speaks to a designer who understands the codes. And there’s a real value to it. I think, historically, you can see some of the avant-garde movements in the fine arts, in design—also in film, in photography. In times when there’s a really strong change or when some individual is doing something really extraordinary, it can only reach a very exclusive circle—an inner circle. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. In order to really advance ideas—strong ideas—sometimes it’s okay to design for designers.