‘Oh-ah’ moments
The influential works of Peter Haythornthwaite
Peter Haythornthwaite’s life is one of unrelenting curiosity. Design, he says, is something he was “born to do”. Across five decades he’s designed all manner of objects for all sorts of companies, while setting an example for ‘design-led’ in New Zealand well before the term entered common usage. Haythornthwaite’s significant contribution to product design in New Zealand is recognised in Design Generation, an exhibition at Objectspace in Auckland. Curated by Michael Smythe, it’s the sixth major commissioned project in the gallery’s Masters of Craft series, which honours a design practitioner and industry leader whose work has enduring impact. Visitors to the exhibition might recognise some of the objects on display, even if they are not familiar with the designer himself. There are small things: the Spife, or spoon-knife, designed as a single implement for kids to slice and scoop kiwifruit; and bigger things, including my personal favourite, the ‘Studio’ fireplace, which was designed in 1991 and is still a regular fixture in many homes in this magazine. Arguably even better is the Studio’s stable mate, the ‘Oh-Ah’. With its double dials and O-shaped window, it has a quirky face – perpetually surprised. It might be New Zealand’s best Memphis-like moment. And no list of Haythornthwaite’s achievements would be complete without LOMAK, the Light Operated Mouse and Keyboard, which assists people with physical impairments in operating a computer. It’s now in the permanent collection of MoMA.
As a child, Haythornthwaite was interested in art and technology and his graphic-designer father, William, introduced his son to the wider world of design. As a student at the Elam School of Fine Arts, he rounded out his thinking, “unpicking” the thought processes and solutions of the great Swiss and German modernists. “I remember just absorbing Swiss design,” says Haythornthwaite, “taking it all in and saying, ‘well, why can’t I do that?’” He would carry that selfbelief throughout his career, balancing it with another intention – how to make things better. Haythornthwaite became schooled in the practicalities of human-centric design while working in New York with celebrated American designer Niels Diffrient at the influential Henry Dreyfuss Associates. “New York felt like the centre of the universe,” says Haythornthwaite of the time. “It was a nucleus of culture, learning, the arts, American history and more. From a design point of view, Niels and two other staff members had just written Humanscale 1/2/3, the first of the ‘Humanscale’ trilogy. It was handsomely designed and comprised interactive quarto-sized panels that provided new information on humanscale measurement. It became the go-to publication for designers, architects and ergonomists.” Haythornthwaite eventually brought this knowledge home to New Zealand. While teaching at the University of Auckland, he set about applying his ideas to local companies that had not really had to think much about how, or even what, they
presented to the public. “I thought I could really make a difference because I’d seen a difference being made in America,” he says. “It seemed to me that a good number of New Zealand companies, often owned by the old boys, were successful primarily because they owned import licenses, or were historically the dominant players. They didn’t particularly care too much about how you or I liked them; it was just that they were in control. I thought, we’ve got to stop thinking about just making money and more about what can we take to the world.” Haythornthwaite’s method was to identify the companies and people he wanted to work with and go after them, get them on board, then assess a company’s health, philosophy, values, vision and purpose, and see whether it “all knitted together in a consistent manner”.
The designer didn’t shrink from personal risk and, in the early 1980s, spotting gaps in the market for products that made life easier in the office, he developed a range under the Artifakts brand. “They were simple things, not complex lighting or chairs, but things that I could control,” he says. “I could design something; I could get a tool made and control the standard because of the quality of the tooling and quality of the manufacturing. It was risky, though. I said to Carol, my wife, ‘We’ve just built a house but how about we sell it because I believe there’s room in the market for a new range of stationary products’. Carol said okay, which was incredibly generous and trusting of her.” Haythornthwaite describes design as “one of those journeys where you are always searching for a better way, to stretch yourself, to make sure you have exposed all that needs to be understood – which can be incredibly challenging and agonising. This is followed by a period of delight, which only lasts a little while because you then consider how you would undertake the project differently if you were to begin it again. But, of course, it’s old ground never to be repeated,” he says. Dieter Rams famously had 10 principles of good design. Haythornthwaite has something similar, but it’s less prescribed. “Listen better. Go slow so you can go fast. Listen because there’s a lot of wisdom in clients, often because they have endured difficult times, but may not know they are wise. You may think you only have one client but you don’t, you have many. There’s a paying client, but there are many people you need to listen to and converse with, observe and understand. Your client, ultimately, is the person using the product.”