Ingo Maurer: Angel’s light

TLmag: You trained as a typographer and studied graphic design in Switzerland and in Germany during the 1950s, while the Bauhaus influence still permeated through the Ulm School of Design and industrialization was at its peak. Was this context instrumental in the organization of your work?

Ingo Maurer – No, the Bauhaus influence was not an overpowering one, if that is what you mean. I started as an apprentice for a local newspaper when I was fifteen, nothing fancy, and later managed to go to a school of graphic design, where we were educated for ‘down to earth’ graphic jobs. At that time, most of the families were still struggling. But being a typographer and graphic designer has taught me a lot of things that I apply in my design work. The spacing between letters or graphic elements is also very much about light, and the precision that is necessary when working with graphic design is just as relevant when refining all the details of a piece of work.

TLmag – You are a creator, but you limit your creative scope to lamps and lighting installations, which you also produce and distribute. Have you never felt the need to design something other than lighting, with creative freedom but less restraint?

I.M.: Actually, I have also designed a couple of other things, in the 1960s, like ashtrays, coat hangers and once even a foldable mattress, which is also a seat. It is still in production. Working with light became more and more fascinating for me, as I developed more and more lamps, and discovered the different qualities light can have, and its effects on space. I think that’s why I stopped designing other pieces. But I am not an analytic person; I follow my gut feeling most of the time. I definitely preferred to produce my designs myself, because I don’t have to accept compromises, which the manufacturers think are necessary. However, over the years, I have also designed a number of tables, and lately also some objects. Most of the tables are not suitable for serial production. They would be too expensive. But in 2011 we presented Floating Table, which will be available through Established & Sons. It’s a table without legs, but with chairs.

TLmag: Isn’t creative freedom, that we find so difficult to hold on to, the only thing that allows transgression, invention, humour...?

I.M.: That’s right! Invention, humour, also irony, and transgression are all factors that can contribute in the making of a special piece. Creative freedom is very important to me. I cannot stand being limited to a certain kind of style. When I make something new, some people still might say, “oh, but that’s very different from your other designs! What has happened?” But I simply want to realize what I am interested in, during a certain period. Thinking in categories is very restricting, it’s no good. In German, we say “drawer thinking”, because it’s like putting something in a drawer. You have to fit in that one or the other one, there’s no inbetween.

TLmag: Ron Arad is a friend of yours. What do you have in common? Is it the rigour and humour? A deep knowledge of, and critical detachment from modern architecture and design? How did you meet? Do you work on projects together?

I.M.: I met Ron a long, long time ago, I don’t remember exactly, probably through Peter Cook, at the time when Ron studied with him in London. In 1994, when he did the Opera in Tel Aviv, we were also involved, creating lighting objects for the foyer and the outside, too. Then, we teamed up for an exhibition at the Milan Triennial in 1995. He’s a powerful creator. It’s hard to say what we have in common, and what we don’t have in common, but I think that’s not really the point about being friends. What matters is that we can talk about our work and our lives, just the two of us, that is, also about doubts and difficulties.

TLmag: Without wanting to stray from the subject of lighting, some of the recent projects you completed are very sculptural, verging on architectural. For example The Tree (2013), an enormous sculpture that marks the entrance to the prestigious Vega Sicilia vineyard, and Broken Egg, a pavilion designed for the Inhotim Park in Brazil, which should be inaugurated in 2014. Is this a turning point in your career?

I.M.: The Broken Egg is also very much about light, but it’s not emitting light. It is an architectural project, that’s right. The perception of spaces, inside of a building, and also from the outside, is always also very much about light. In the egg, the visitors will have a very special sensation of the space and the light within. I don’t like to think too much about these categories. A turning point? We will see what happens, and many years from now, maybe, such a moment will look like a turning point. However, it’s true that it is a very different kind of work because of the kind of technical issues, the fact that we collaborated with an engineer - a really fantastic one - and the time it takes until it will be opened. There’s a lot that is new and astonishing for me. The Director of Inhotim even had a lake made larger for the Egg, it is also becoming a landscape project now. It really blew my mind when he showed me the new lake. He is an extraordinary man, and a great collector of art.
The Tree was in fact a part of a larger project, including light planning for interiors, which was not realized. In the beginning, when we designed the Tree, we had thought about light emitting pieces on it, but while working on the models came to the conclusion that it is stronger in its expression without that. And that’s what I think is the creative freedom: to say that, although I’m known for making lamps and light, it’s my freedom to also create a piece without light, even if I am in the “drawer” for lighting design. I don’t like living in a drawer!