Designer Ronan Bouroullec reflects on his long-standing collaboration with his brother Erwan as well as their relationship with furniture retailer Vitra
At the time when Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec started working with furniture retailer Vitra nearly two decades ago, the brothers were still fresh faces in the design scene. “The relationship with Vitra has changed our lives,” recalls Ronan. “We were so young, all the other designers were old masters; we added a lot of freshness.”
The prolific French duo have come a long way from the days when Erwan (the younger of the two brothers) started as “family help” during the early years of their eponymous studio. To regain that youthful dynamism, the siblings seek to continually reinvent themselves through their work, while blurring the boundaries between art and design.
This year for Vitra, they presented a series of works-in-progress. Based on Ronan’s drawings, the studio created an array of prototype ceramic vases, with each piece cut from a slab of clay and joined together in whimsical compositions of colours, shapes and textures.
(Related: Virgil Abloh’s Basel Installation With Vitra Is A Look Into The Future Of Furniture Design)
While their work may be diverse, the co-founders have opted to keep their practice small. “We are a very small studio; we are just six people. We are not running after money after 30 years of work,” shares Ronan. “We choose our projects when we feel a challenge, when we feel the passion in front of us; that is very important.”
Recently, the studio designed the bronze fountains at the Avenue des Champs-Elysées in Paris; a project that also reflects Ronan’s growing interest in designing for public spaces. “It’s a bit of a frustration after 30 years that our work is dedicated to a certain part of society,” he says. “I would like to address it to a larger group of people.”