Mathieu Lehanneur

Mathieu Lehanneur:

Today, a lot of people in many places on earth are beginning to ask themselves questions about how we’re living. Does one want to continue living in big cities, surrounded by density, housing, pollution and noise? There’s a need to return to nature, so my idea was to give this a form. The project asks: Are you ready to change your life? Once we question ourselves about living independently, we’re closer to living in a cave or grotto, which is where we all originate from. Our basic needs haven’t changed: I need to have energy, warmth, protection, activity and food. And technology is much more capable of being able to provide us with these services. So we designed a wind turbine which is placed on the roof, where we’re growing plants and vegetables and have our refrigerator. Similarly, we’ve integrated a punching bag for exercise. I actually have a punching bag at home that my wife, my children and I all use. Nearly all the installation is made in wood, like the exterior tiles that provide good insulation.

The idea is to mix different elements – some technological, like the Andrea air purifier (2007), others not – in order, paradoxically, to return to who we are and what we need as much as possible. We’ve installed an aluminium drone to film and monitor the environment, such as capturing a doe early in the morning which I missed because I was asleep. When we were prehistoric men and women, we made cave paintings of what we’d hunted. The drone speaks about our desire to see the surrounding nature and the need to be in contact with and accepted by it.

Mathieu Lehanneur:

I’ve got an old house in the countryside, north of Paris near Compiègne, in which there isn’t much technology. So I’m thinking of taking a few elements from here and installing them there.

I live in Paris but don’t need to be there all the time. I can work anywhere; I just need a pencil, a sheet of paper and an internet connection. Today, we’re lucky in that we can invent another life without abandoning everything, still be in contact with the rest of the world whilst being close to nature. If I had to live in the middle of the countryside, I think I’d make myself a home a bit like Outonomy. I could have called the project Outarcy [a pun on “out” and “autocracy”], being totally isolated without any contact, but I still need others although I have more freedom.

Mathieu Lehanneur:

For outdoors, we’ve developed these two new cubic armchairs, Square Sun. For indoors, we’ve just made this new Hug Chair with a simple, sculpted wooden base and yellow velvet back that seems to float like something vegetal. There’s also our recent lamp, Guernica; we started by making a 3D scan of the iris flower which we modified on the computer and then we made the lamp in ceramic.

https://www.mathieulehanneur.fr/project/square-sun-306

https://www.mathieulehanneur.fr/project/guernica-311

I wanted the whole exterior to be monochromatic, like a very intense colour block, as if this yellow were capable of sending us energy. Meanwhile, I wanted the interior space to be more neutral, a lot softer and less energetic, with organic, enveloping forms that are closer to who we are as human beings and biology, and that reinterpret natural elements.

Mathieu Lehanneur:

In Basel, the pieces combined blown glass with marble. Here, the series is entirely in glass and we’ve added the gold-leaf spots. The idea was that the structure of the table would almost disappear and the spots would seem to be floating. The feet are very large blown-glass pieces that, with the right thickness, are very resistant. We work with glassblowers and receive all the elements at the Factory where we make the gold-leaf finishing and collage the piece together.

Mathieu Lehanneur:

We gradually settled in about a year ago. It’s an old building dating from 1900 that belonged to EDF, France’s national electricity company, and that has been completely renovated. Having the Factory allows us to control every stage of the process, from the initial idea and drawing to boxing and shipping a piece to the customer. You no longer make any compromises. When you work for a brand, some choices and decisions are made by other people. Today, we operate more like a brand than a designer working for other people. Sometimes we need to subcontract certain components but everything is verified, assembled, boxed and shipped from the Factory. It’s more responsibility and risk but it also gives us much more freedom and certainty because what we’re going to deliver corresponds exactly to what we want to do.

Mathieu Lehanneur:

Yes, what happens very often [when you’re collaborating with a brand], even if the designer does a very good job, is that the pieces will go through marketing, technology and distribution and the smallest things will change. Sometimes it’s a millimetre that changes or a small screw is added or a colour is modified or the story-telling is altered. It’s as if I were a musician, created a song and then the record company decided to cut ten seconds off the end. Ten seconds isn’t much but for the musician, the artist, those ten seconds were very important. The best way to be sure that the ten seconds will be there and that the song will be recorded the way we want is to do it ourselves.

Mathieu Lehanneur:

Pretty well. If clients would prefer us to design things for them, we’ll say, “But no. We won’t do it any more because we can do it ourselves.” Just as we’re in an installation called Outonomy, I’m also building my autonomy in my way of working. What I’m able to do today with the brand at the Factory, I wouldn’t have been able to do 10 years ago. It’s a heavy structure with big investment and significant risks. Managing everything yourself is a very long process: we make two prototypes and two tests then we start again because we aren’t happy and remake other prototypes. But I’d prefer to do fewer things and master them completely rather than try to design for everyone without controlling the entire chain.

Mathieu Lehanneur:

Very little was outlined in the brief, leaving great freedom for designers to make their own interpretation. I was inspired by several things in particular, the first being equality because the Olympic and Paralympic Games are put on the same level and there’s perfect equality between male and female athletes. So I really wanted to express this sense of equality through a play on symmetry between the torch’s lower and upper parts. The second element is that I wanted to encapsulate a bit of the Parisian spirit. I could have been inspired by the Eiffel Tower but I found that a bit too obvious. So I drew inspiration from the Seine which will be the scene of the opening ceremony. On the torch’s lower part are the ebb and flow of the Seine, as if the torch were reflected in the water. The 3D image that I presented during the competition phase and the final torch are absolutely identical. But we had many challenges to resolve. The torch is a very technical and technological object with an embedded system to prevent the flame from going out if there’s wind, rain or a storm.

Mathieu Lehanneur:

The Olympic torch is almost a dream object for a designer because it’s very historical and symbolic and must convey a message and values. Before the competition was launched, I even said to myself that I thought I’d make a proposal. Even if I hadn’t been asked or preselected, I’d have done it on Instagram because it’s an object that focuses on a lot of things that interest me.