Iconoclast
Hervé Van der Straeten designs collectible pieces akin to works of modern art
What do Tom Ford, Steven Spielberg and Princess Marie- Chantal have in common? Aside from names that can procure last-minute reservations at Nobu, they’re all avid clients of furniture designer Hervé Van der Straeten, famed for his bold, architectural pieces that bridge the divide between interior design and contemporary art. The Parisian designer’s work—his oeuvre also includes jewellery and lighting—evokes the alien and the ancient, and his methods are both cutting edge and painstakingly traditional. Bronze, aluminium, wood, alabaster and goatskin parchment are handwrought, polished, carved and stretched to create consoles, mirrors and chandeliers. “A piece is perfect to me when it combines a strong concept with a high level of craftsmanship that seems invisible,” Van der Straeten says from his home on the Île SaintLouis in Paris. “Traditional manufacturing has always been natural to me even though it is against all of today’s norms. It is costly and terribly time consuming but the result is that it generates pieces that are rare.”
be passionate about craftsmanship, but that doesn’t mean he shuns technology. Van der Straeten uses 3D printing, for instance, but he never considers a work complete unless it bears his fingerprints. “I like to sculpt the shapes for my work by hand first, then we scan the object and duplicate it using a 3D printer. Sometimes we even create the models, 3D-print them, then work them by hand again to give them more soul and more softness.”
DYNAMIC CONTRASTS
Van der Straeten had intended to be an engineer like his father. As a boy, he spent hours constructing houses out of Lego. These structural exercises increased his focus on finding solutions that embodied his ideals of beauty and elegance. He muscled through a year of an engineering degree before enrolling in art school. “At engineering school, I learned to create proper plans and conceive intricate things. Then I went to the École des BeauxArts where I learnt to be free and forget about rules,” says the 52-year-old, who graduated with a degree in painting. “I was encouraged first to be extremely strict, then to be extremely free. You find these competing philosophies, these tensions, in my work.” That much is evident in Empilée Console, a table composed of slanted pieces of lacquered wood and mink patinated textured bronze, which Van der Straeten considers to be one of his best works. “The blocks look randomly and irregularly displayed, but the piece is highly engineered,” he says. “It is elegant, graphic; there is a sense of movement, authority, and there’s something joyful about it. These are all of the elements you find in my body of work. I’m a Libra so I’m always looking for harmony. The creative side (of me) fools around with sculptural concepts, shapes and colours, and the other side makes it happen precisely.”
PURSUIT OF PERFECTION
Perfection is a recurring theme in conversations with Van der Straeten. He was quoted in a 2013 Wall Street Journal profile saying he is “obsessed” with achieving this lofty, subjective ideal. Beyond a strong concept with a high level of craftsmanship, he feels an object is flawless when it “attracts you and glows in a mysterious way.” His infatuation with perfection also stems from the fact that he began his career as
“IT IS CRUCIAL TO EMBRACE AND UNDERSTAND THE CREATIVITY OF THE PAST. IT GIVES MORE SOUL TO ANY CREATION AND LINKS IT TO OUR COLLECTIVE MEMORY”
a jewellery designer. Since graduating from art school in 1985, he has made jewellery for Christian Lacroix, Yves Saint Laurent and his own eponymous brand. “As a jewellery designer you work on a very small scale. You’re creating something precious, something worn by women, so you tend to think in terms of precision, softness, movement. It has to be delicate. You think in terms of tiny objects, of details that span half a millimetre, so when you begin working on a larger scale, your objects tend to keep this level of preciousness.” Van der Straeten opened his gallery in the Marais district of Paris in 1999. By 2004, he had his own bronze and cabinet-making workshops. He has always worked for himself: “I’m very lucky to have always been independent. It’s very satisfying as a designer to have total freedom over what you can do.” In 2008 he was appointed a chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters, and in 2012 he became a member of the Comité Colbert, an organisation founded in 1954 by Jean-jacques Guerlain to promote the luxury sector. His work is in numerous galleries around the world, including the Flore Gallery in Brussels, the Karsten Greve Gallery in St Moritz, Switzerland, and the Ralph Pucci Gallery in New York.
CONTEMPORARY RELEVANCE
Van der Straeten describes himself as “curious” and his inspirations “eclectic”. To him, true perfection in design hinges on the intermingling of complementary and conflicting influences. “Anyone should feel free to mix whatever they like,” says the designer. “An interior should show its owner’s personality instead of trying to erase it by making it look perfect and dull. An interior is more musical and whimsical if different periods and styles combine and sometimes fight.” This appreciation for dynamism and conflict is evident in the disparate pool of his idols— Gerrit Rietveld, Shigeru Ban, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Josef Hoffmann and Pierre Chareau. The Mies van der Rohe pavilion in Barcelona is in his view the “epitome of elegance and modernity”. “Creation does not generate itself from nothingness,” he says. “It is crucial to embrace and understand the creativity of the past. It gives more soul to any creation and links it to our collective memory.” Reverent and rebellious, Van der Straeten is cementing his place in our collective memory, too.