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Observing is the Best Way of Thinking - an interview with Alfredo Häberli
By Tamsin Kingswell, for mix Future Interiors
The biographical nature of his work and the need to produce design that elicits an instinctive response is the key to understanding Alfredo Häberli.
What makes a designer’s designer? In a world beset by faddy look-at-me lines, all too often the fundamental premises of good design are forgotten. Alfredo Häberli’s work, which embraces simplicity, functionalism and an inherent understanding of how and why people use the objects around them are all part of his appeal within the design community. “I’m not interested in designing to cynically target the consumer, I’m more interested in design with a long term future, not superficial success. Serious design should be strong and subtle; people should look twice and know that there is careful thought behind it.”
Häberli had the type of peripatetic childhood that seems to breed good designers. Born in Buenos Aires, his father worked for Swiss Air so the family traveled, settling in Switzerland in 1977 when Häberli was 14. “I grew up in Argentina so it was a shock coming from a Latin country; I suffered a lot as a young student, but the combination of emotion which is a very Argentine quality and practicality which is a very Swiss quality has proved fundamental to the success of my designs,” he says.
SurroundThings Los Bancos
Four years of studying industrial design in Zürich cemented a conviction that his future lay in product design. “I learnt early that there is a designer behind each object we see and use in everyday life. That’s how I got started; it started me dreaming. I was always observing the best way of using every day objects, why wheels work, how to hold a pen, I was inspired by small objects. Well designed objects are life’s little pleasures.”
Nais chair for ClassiCon
Häberli’s transition into industry was smooth. “In 1991 I was literally straight out of college and had enough work to get by but I was worried about what direction to take. So I listened to (Italian architect and designer) Castiglioni who advised me to go my own way.” Häberli’s own way may have been idiosyncratic but it was also ambitious; his first act on leaving college was to draw up a list of his ten favorite companies. “I have now worked with eight of them,” he laughs. Here he cites Italian artist and designer Bruno Munari (Häberli curated a show of the designer’s work in 1994) and Japanese philosophy as influences. “I learnt to just wait and the right time will come. Then one of these ten companies called me and it snowballed from there.”
Skate chair for Moroso
Much of Häberli’s work, from the Nais chair for ClassiCon (2004) to the Take a Line for a Walk line chair for Moroso (2003) explores the pared down power of the line, with the functionalism of an object reduced literally to its barest form. Other pieces like the upholstered low chair Skate for Moroso (2005) and Pattern bookshelf for Quodes (2006) reveal an innate understanding of structure and engineering principles that must underpin all good design.
Left: Rosa Simple for Driade. Right: Origo bowls for Iittalia
Häberli has also worked on interior concepts for fashion brand joop! (2004) and for Spanish shoe company Camper in Paris (2006), Rome, Valencia, Naples and London. However one of his most successful and long-standing collaborations has been with the Finnish design company Iittala. His Origo dinner service (1999) is a masterpiece of underplayed control, while the innate practicality of his Kid’s Stuff tableware (2003) is combined with a light playfulness that reflects his belief that children want products like adults rather than childish facsimiles.
Kid’s Stuff tableware for Iittalia
Häberli is nobody’s fool when it comes to securing production of his products, “This is a global industry; you need to talk reality and create a clear concept with an easy to understand message.” However he remains an auteur over the design process itself. He has no wish to be merely a titular head presiding over a large body of faceless designers. Consequently, despite pressure to grow, he has kept his studio small and lean with six employees. “Any more and the ideas will no longer be mine. Of course we knock ideas around like ping-pong initially but when we move on to the prototype, I am the one in control. I am the professor not the manager.” This need for control reflects a greater concern with the current state of the design world; “This is a very plagiaristic market; we are producing too much. Lots of designers flit from one trend to another so there is no integrity; they are just playing around. There needs to be more control,” he says.
Häberli’s studio
He is also resolutely married to basing his studio in Switzerland despite being lured by the more obvious choices of Italy or London. “People’s perception of Switzerland is irritating. As a design centre it gets bad press and yet we have the best schools in the world, superb engineering and a solid history of research and innovation despite being such a small country. Plus there is a unique appreciation of design history. But that’s the Swiss way, they never shout about things, they are humble about their abilities.”
| Häberli is quick to pay homage to the debt he owes to this Swiss heritage of good design. He keeps a huge library of design books and, since he was a student, has worked in Zürich for the Museum für Gestaltung, where he has been responsible for numerous exhibitions covering a proliferation of different design themes. “Initially I worked with the museum to pay my way during my studies but I was lucky, what I saw at the museum had a huge impact on my design. It’s a small step to make a new discovery from old things to inventing something new, so often it’s the small details that make all the difference.” |  Häberli’s studio |
Having children has also had a positive impact on his work. “I increased my turnover four times once I had children. It’s a different responsibility, but you can learn a lot from children. They are very clever; we use our brains too much but children know instinctively if something is good or not.”
Take a Line for a Walk chair for Moroso
His happy childhood and the influence of his children has had a huge impact on his recent project for Schiffini (2008), which premiered at this year’s Milan. “This was a dream project as I was given a long time just to dream. So I went back to my childhood for inspiration. I have never understood the appeal of huge kitchens with macho slabs as surfaces. They are just about showing off, they are not fit for purpose. All my favorite kitchens don’t look like that; there’s mess and good smells and character, not expanses of shiny surface.”
Schiffini kitchen
The resulting concept is a kitchen that is designed to be the soul of the house, that abandons minimalism and machismo, instead embracing familiarity and domesticity. So consequently there is a fireplace included, as after all, “the first kitchen was an open fire.” A carpenter’s bench inspired the table to help cooks with tricky vertical slicing; benches are stolen from seating outside pubs. This is a very idiosyncratic design for a kitchen and yet everything has been considered to such an extent that it makes you question why on earth there isn’t a vertical water silo in every kitchen.
Schiffini kitchen
When it came to choosing materials for this kitchen, Häberli was sick of ubiquitous chrome so instead used copper and wood. “The patina is much better on copper, chrome is a nightmare to keep clean,” he explains. This approach follows Häberli’s belief that material should be fit for purpose. It also sums up the designers readiness to go his own way. “In the beginning I thought mainly of the industrial process otherwise people would laugh at me. Now quite often I don’t want to know about technical limitations. If I know too much it can constrain me.”
Camper shop interior
Despite resisting the lure of the big studio, Häberli still manages an impressive workload; there’s a further Camper shop in Barcelona, a fabric collection for Kvadrat featuring a fluorescent story that cleverly illuminates when you turn off the light and he recently curated his own monographic exhibition at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zürich which featured all his design work to date.
SurroundThings render
In everything Häberli does though there is a strong biographical thread. What principally defines his work is not an easy design text book label but something far more fundamental; “When it comes to designing what continues to inspire me is what I see around me, what I have learnt from my childhood and history. We need to ask, ‘does this product have a soul?’ ‘Does this product touch me?’ I don’t even need to know why. It should almost be a childlike response.”
Article written by Tamsin Kingswell for mix Future Interiors magazine issue 14 – Global Color Research – www.globalcolor.co.uk. Reproduced with kind permission.