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IcerocketChannels: European DesignJuli Capella
New Media staff at the Indianapolis Museum of Art visit Juli Capella at his office in Barcelona to hear about his fascinating career, design projects, European design and the possibility of being a rock and roll star.
My name is Juli Capella, I am an architect and tool designer.
My dream when I was young is to be inventor and I was looking for the university how to study for inventor
and there was not career, so people said, no, you can do engineer and you can do arts
and I choose in the middle, architecture is half artistic, and half technical profession
and when I finish to study, I realized that I don’t know nothing about architecture.
I start doing furniture. Afterwards, the reform of the bathroom of some friend,
and during this time, when I was young, I often go to bars, for drink, for dancing,
and people ask me, Ah... you are an architect? So, why you don’t give me some ideas for reform the interior.... Ok, and I did some reforms.
After the small reforms, I did the building for bars, discotheques, and leisure entertainment centers, hotels. So, I become an architect
by the experience, step by step.
I have a very special approach about design, because I am convinced that everything is designing.
Let me, what is not design, maybe a tree, maybe a cloud, ok... but this... this... this...
the camera, the space, furniture, the house. Civilization means design. Everything is design
but everything can be redesigned, that’s good opportunity for.... for us... for designers and for producers.
This is a new mentality. Nobody think about this one century ago.
There is the boom for change, totally change the tradition on design.
Design was born, for me, after the Industrial Revolution in England starts and comes through all Europe,
and the industrialization needs to make the difference between who design, who do the drawings, and who produce.
That's is the difference with the arts and crafts. Arts and crafts have the same, who have the idea, produce and sell at the same time.
Well, until this moment, the evolution of design in Europe is just follow the function.
Is that Rationalism, or Functionalism, it's the Bauhaus School is if you are doing a chair, the chair must be the absolutely a result of the ergonomy,
that follow the shape of the body, with the right material, and nothing more. In America, there was another tradition started by Raymond Loewy,
is for to sell, you need beautiful, very attractive shapes. It's the styling. The styling means how to sell more. It's the design appear to the capitalism developed in America
and, for me, Europe from 95, maybe from 90, in the 90s
give another exit, propose another use for design.
Very short, is the emotive design or the symbolism in design. A chair is not just for to sit. A chair is not just for to sell.
It’s more than this. It’s about sensations. It’s talking about me,
the chair that I have in my house. There is emotional approach. So, post-modernists, and this more
emotive and sensual approach, is for me, the main contribution of European design from 90s until this moment.
In Europe, we are still obsessed by Greek and Roman tradition. It’s the man, it’s the center of all.
It’s not the business. It’s the man, the human being. It's that humanistic approach. We design thinking in people,
not thinking in business, or not only business, not thinking just in beauty, but thinking in to be the interact with people.
Design is for users, not for custumers. It’s different.
User is active relationship. Spanish design is very organic.
The shapes, curves, maybe it’s the influence of culture, may be Gaudi, may be Picasso, Surrealism, Miro.
We love strong shapes. We love the hand sign. We love strong colors,
red, yellow. It’s a matter. We are able to use that. At the same time, it’s very simple designs.
We have not good mechanical manufacturers. We don’t produce appliances.
This is for German people, for Japanese people. We do furniture, lamps, but no lamps for to give light.
This is for Erco, for Germany, but lamps for to give warmth in the room, lamps for to make love.
I remember when I start to revolve in design world, that you can realize differences in Japanese design, American design.
I think this is finished, is not anymore, because with internet and globalization, we have same knowledge.
Same samples. We read same magazines. We travel a lot. Many, many Spanish designers are finishing studios in London
or in America, in Milano. So, I think the future will be...
will be more global and more universal, but at the same time these push people for to be different
and for me the future will be every designer can want to be absolutely different from the others.
It’s a good combination.
My inspiration, until maybe 30 years old was nothing, just to live, work, travel, make love, drink, dream.
I was just unconscious of inspiration, but by my job I started to read
and to go to the exhibitions and to analyze the tendencies and I started to see the prizes, the awards.
I was obsessed about what has happened in New York, what’s happened in London, in Tokyo because are the capitals of the creativity in the world
and this was a terrible mistake because I started to do the same that the others, and maybe worse.
So, now I want to change my kind of inspiration and go back to a more naive approach.
This year, I don't know. But, my favorite film is Blade Runner, by Ridley Scott, because this is to create a new world in the future
but having in mind the past. For me, it’s a beautiful mix between future and past, and from aesthetical point of view is very nice.
Of course, it will be rock and roll star, because I think it’s the maximum pleasure to be doing something creative, playing music,
that your self, you are create and giving happiness a thousand and thousand of people, they are, they are happy dancing,
screaming. That, for me, can be maybe the maximum pleasure in my life. But there is another, less ego, option.
Well, I don't know. Is movie director, because he is very close to be designer. Movie director can control everything,
can reproduce a new life, can decide the fashion design, can design the interior design,
the architecture, and as well, the life of the people. So, for me, he is very close to be god.
This is a perfect design, is a movie director.
Rock and roll star!
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