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Designers
France
Biography Christophe Pillet Graduated from the Decorative Arts School in Nice in 1985, Master of Domus Academy, Milano, in 1986. He worked with Martine Bedin in Milano for two years (1986-1988). He started his own agency in 1993 and has been working independently ever since. His first furniture were produced by XO in 1991. He now engages in many fields: product and furniture design, interior decoration, architecture, scenography and artistic direction. He creates furniture and objects for Cappellini, Daum, JC Decaux, Driade, Ecart International, L’Oréal, Lacoste, Moroso, Porro, Renault, Serralunga, Shiseido, Shu Uemura, Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, Whirlpool… He also realises interior architecture for boutiques, hotels and restaurants such as the very hip Hôtel Sezz in Paris.
Sweden
Claesson Koivisto Rune is a Swedish architectural partnership, founded in Stockholm, in 1995, by Mårten Claesson, Eero Koivisto and Ola Rune. Begun as an architectural firm, it is now an internationally acclaimed, multi-disciplinary office with an equal emphasis on both architecture and design. As the first Swedish office to have exhibited in the international section at the Venice Architecture Biennale, in 2004, they are also responsible for a wide range of award-winning projects such as K5 Tokyo, Grand Hotel Terminus, Villa Terminus, Zander K and Bergen Børs hotels in Bergen, Norway, Inde/Jacobs gallery building in Marfa, Texas, Sfera Building culture house in Kyoto, the Tind Prefab house collection for Fiskarhedenvillan, Widlund House private villa on Öland, Örsta Gallery building in Kumla, Nobis Hotel and Hotel Skeppsholmen in Stockholm. They design for such international companies as Arflex, Artifort, Asplund, Boffi, Capdell, Cappellini, David design, Dux, Fontana Arte, Kasthall, Living Divani, Modus, Muuto, Nikari, Offecct, Paola Lenti, Smaller Objects, Studio TK, Tacchini, Wästberg, among others. Claesson Koivisto Rune has received an array of international awards and recognitions, amongst them ten American Good Design Awards 2009 - 18, the Designpreis Deutschland (Gold and Silver) 2011 by the Federal Republic of Germany, Designer of the Year 2011 and Furniture of the Year 2012 by Elle Deco Sweden, both Designer of the Year and Best Seating 2014 by Elle Decor Italia, and the Red Dot Design Award – Best of the Best 2014, making them the first office to hold the prestigious Red Dot in five different product categories, architecture included. In 2015, they also received the prestigious Bruno Mathsson award, the highest honour in furniture design in Sweden and the Scandinavian region. Quotes on Claesson Koivisto Rune “When they unveiled the plans for us we were simply bowled over by the amazing design.” Vilis Inde, Art gallerist and author, Marfa, Texas, USA (From the book ”Claesson Koivisto Rune in Marfa The inde/jacobs gallery”, 2015, ISBN 978-91-877733-02-4) “In my time working as an observer to the design industry, it is rare to see a trio of men working so consistently well together.” Max Fraser, Design author and commentator, London, UK (From the book ”Claesson Koivisto Rune On Yellow”, 2011, ISBN 9789197655743) ”Claesson Koivisto Rune is a prime example of the power of contemporary design. Architecture and design are not only one profession, but they also lose the scale difference that allowed them to be kept separate.” Paola Antonelli, Curator of Architecture and Design, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, USA (From the book “Claesson Koivisto Rune Architecture/Design”, Birkhäuser 2007, ISBN: 978-3-7643-7948-3) ”The architecture and furniture designs by Claesson Koivisto Rune are the most evident example of the way inventiveness, humour and the reversals of stock forms can produce new panoramas for our minds, and these panoramas can be expressed with an instinctive simplicity, not with a reductive and faint-hearted minimalism.” Italo Lupi, Editor and Art Director of Abitare magazine, Italy (From the book ”Nine Houses Claesson Koivisto Rune”, 2003, ISBN 4-9901483-0-4 C0052)
About Kristalia
Something that, like jazz, is impossible to understand if you even venture to explain it.
Matisse, who knew a lot about life, joy and beauty, once said “jazz is rhythm and meaning”. Today we could say that design is a meaning to which a rhythm has been given. A chair is a chair, but a design chair plays a different kind of music. Which is why Kristalia’s story always starts with jazz notes.
The meaning is innovation, functionality, handicraft expertise, Made in Italy, sustainability, transparency.
Kristalia was founded in 1994 by the will of a group of young jazz fans from Friuli who did the smartest, easiest and most instinctive thing one could think of: they took a look at their immediate surroundings – north-east Italy where the company was going to be based – and discovered completely new design sectors through which the best products of this land could be expressed: mountain boots, the production of automobile parts, clothing and knitwear. They then decided to give a new rhythm to these places to move them towards design innovation.
A few years later, Kristalia was already a landmark in Italy and beyond. At the outset of the 21st century the company made the history of extending tables. In the second decade of the century it became one of the design firms that particularly attracted designers. A few years ago it also opened up to the world of hospitality contract supplies.
Nowadays, once sceptical sub-contractors are the first to contact Kristalia to develop new ideas. The meaning: to establish a sound and lasting relationship with a family of designers and artisans, opening up to new talents capable of communicating with an accurate, clean-cut and visionary language and with a very strong bent for innovation.
Rhythm: none of the things that are discovered or the route that lead to them must be concealed. On the contrary, they must be showcased, in every sense, while preserving the uniqueness that allows Kristalia to be instinctively able to understand what the company can identify with now, which new environments and languages should be explored and which should not.
Everything else must be removed, moving towards a minimalism that leaves only the essentials, to be, make and even to communicate a value that is the heart and form of the product. This is part of the makeup of a company that chooses to travel light so that it can be more versatile, contemporary, useful and open.
On the subject of the company’s makeup, Kristalia will always talk about its roots – on a large scale about Italy, on a smaller one about Pordenone – as a lover would. Meaning: roots, the district, the unparalleled network of sub-contractors, project culture, nature, time. Rhythm: a generous company headquarters that actually produces a GDP made up of beauty, energy, amusement, meetings, concerts and events and delivers these to the community in exchange for the things the territory gives back to the company in terms of value and of a heritage that is not always immediately tangible.
There are also advantages within the company, within the group, for all those working in a context where there are almost no appreciable hierarchies. It’s no coincidence that you never hear anyone mention the word boss or the name of some other company VIP in Kristalia, that there are none of the front men we are normally used to seeing in traditional design companies. Kristalia is a plural noun.
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