Down to the Detail

In the car, Jaime tells me a bit about the inspiration behind the new pieces, explaining that he himself lives with a number of cabinets made in a similar way, just in different materials (marble and stone rather wood and lacquer). Like the rest of the Explorer series—its tables and vases—this cabinet is simple, elegant, and organic, designed to have no sharp edges or corners, to be ‘child-friendly’, he tells me.

Jaime boasts one of the most decorated careers in contemporary design, in part because all of his projects contain a similarly personal element; his own experiences inform the initial idea, and this makes the final object distinctively his. Having forged his identity and later led the design department at Fabrica, the Benetton Group’s research centre in Treviso, Jaime branched out on his own in 2001. He’d already began collaborating with BD by this point, and over the years has created a number of iconic, award-winning objects in collaboration with the team in Barcelona—epitomised by the latest and glossiest member of the Explorer family.

That evening, we arrived at a bar, sat down facing the wall, and hit record on Voice Memos. I’ve always been amazed by the quality of Jaime’s finished product, especially in the spaces he creates; these projects are highly complex and made up of many different elements, all of which he appears to coordinate with such ease. And so, with this is mind, I began our conversation by asking Jaime..

How do you control all the moving parts?

In my house I have a lot of cabinets that were made in the same way as the collection. The difference is that I use marble, stone, or wood for the surface, but I’ve always used these types of shelves and drawers. 
They’re designed to be somewhat organic, simple, clean, and with no sharp edges, because I wanted them to be very child-friendly. It was an exercise in taking what I already use on a more personal level and bringing it to BD, and also in continuing what we’re doing with the Explorer family in terms of tones, colours, and materials.

You have a hyper personal and unmistakable style. That’s indisputable. But what amazes me most is the quality of the finished products—which are usually highly complex due to their shapes and finishes. That’s also reflected in the spaces you create, where there are a lot more elements to coordinate. How do you control it all?

I think it’s about education. In design there’s the designer that makes furniture and objects, who’s very different from the person that designs a space. It’s a different mentality. Those of us who are the former, when we make a space we have a tendency to try and get down to the detail in everything. When you see a normal interior designer’s plans, they might not be 1000% meticulous with something like a door handle, for example.
We use the excuse of the space to learn by doing and to try and define new codes that make the space more unique. ‘The door is going to be awesome. It's going to be this format, it's going to be this material. We're going to do something different, we're going to experiment’, etcetera. I think that's the love of detail, the love of the small.

I understand the theory, but how do you actually do it? For example, how do these pieces you have in Asia work? Because you can't be there on top of it, controlling the process 1000%.

That's why I started this dialogue talking about education. Because of course, whoever does it isn’t going to know how to do it exactly the way you want it, no way. They're going to interpret it, and they might surprise you, but generally that doesn't happen. The process has to be a kind of educational moment in which we show them details of how we like things done, like how the pieces are joined together or how we like the cuts.
For example, a door has to come together with a bevel on the side, not a bevel on top. A hinge can't be seen. When you open the door it has to be hidden. It's education. A lot of education and a lot of practice. And many times teaching is just about giving an example. Then we pass them the baton, let them propose how they’d do it, and maybe also end up learning something ourselves.
But we’re always very meticulous in the studio, and I'm the first one to say, ‘Holy shit, these guys aren’t going to do it right. We'll have to sit down with them and show them what we want’. Quality has a lot to do with the dialogue in which they build the object for you and the familiarity with which you talk to them.

What about your team? Seeing the magnitude of things you do, it's hard to imagine how you work with a team of just three or four people. Getting to the level of detail you’re talking about must require a lot of time.

Well, we do it as a team of 10–12, between Italy and Spain. When I tell interior designers what we do, they laugh their heads off.

And how many of you are in Valencia?

Five of us. The key is to keep learning all the time and teaching your studio what you like and the level of quality you expect. Above all, don't try to do everything yourself. Even if you know how to do it well, even if you want to do it, say, ‘No, I've reached a point. Now I'm going to give it to someone else and I'm going to say the magic words: “I'll supervise it for you”'. It’s to say, ‘I trust you, propose the solution and show it to me’. When the solution arrives, if it’s wrong, we just do it again differently.
For example, we worked on some very large sculptures for a park. We made some 3D models, and passed them to a supplier to make us a small sample. We saw the quality of the finish and decided to go ahead and make it full-scale. My mind was at ease because I could see that aesthetically they had achieved what I wanted. Then structurally we knew they were going to do it right—I don't have to be in control of how the tube is assembled, how it’s fastened, and so on.
This is how we work. That's how we make sure that the effectiveness is more in the creativity and the true definition of the style than in the time we spend on development. You know how much time is wasted in development. It's hardcore.

And do you sometimes feel that the final result hasn’t lived up to your expectations? I feel like that doesn't happen to you.

That's why I insist so much on supervision. In the Saxon system, for example, they determine the package early on with a lot of specification, and then they don't have to do anything. I don't like to work like that.
I think sophistication comes in when you provide something that’s more or less there, but that someone else can interpret. They show you how they’d do it. That's really cool. I want the other person to be comfortable, to show me their best work, and then we can look at it with a magnifying glass.
There’s a lot to supervise with these kinds of projects. A lot. But they’re two different jobs: the job of designing and the job of being flexible. I think that's also part of the process of doing it well, not being too fussy about one thing. Some people get really geeky, really crazy.

Well, I imagine you’re that manic and geeky with the way things are done.

I'm very hands-off. I'm not the kind of guy who’s harping on all day long. I believe there’s an important psychological part of doing these big, complex projects, and that’s enthusiasm. It's why I talk a lot about family, fraternity, getting along, having a good time together, and being passionate about what we do. Because in the end that’s what leads to us doing really wonderful things. It happens when people are in a good mood. And anyway, if not, it's all a bit of a drag, isn't it? Good creativity is a reflection of you in every way, with your team and with everyone else involved in the project.
It's the same with producing furniture. I believe you have to work with companies like families, because in the way that your family understands you—how you like the table set, that you like such-and-such a thing to drink, if you like a certain dish—well, it’s the same thing. As I said earlier, what we do is we explain our ideas to the guy behind the technical part, so that he gets to know how we like the table set. That's the vibe. When you become a family, you end up doing good design. Egos don't exist and you can just talk about creativity, which is the purest thing. In the studio we’re very loyal to the companies we work with. We really like to go deep with these people because we don't have to prove anything anymore.
For example, when I first started working with Fritz Hansen it was very difficult, there was a very big barrier. There were a lot of people who didn't think I’d do something good for the company. It was as if they’d put a stamp on me, and wouldn't give me the option to do anything different. Well, no, of course there are options! And that's the interesting part of getting into something that's not your comfort zone. For me, Fritz Hansen at that time was not my comfort zone, let alone theirs. They wanted a Jasper.

And how do you end up working with them in that situation?

I got a call from the director at the time and she said something very reasonable, very clearly. She told me, ‘People think Danish design is wood. It's all warm. It's a Jacobsen chair. But that's not the case. I think there’s more similarity between the semiotics of Danish design and your work than in the forms of Finn Juhl or Arne Jacobsen. I think we have to give you a chance to show us something that may be more embodied in our DNA than we think’.
It was very strange because she was telling me this and I was hearing it but I didn't believe it. But then I started to look and I thought, ‘Damn, she's right’.

I have a very clear memory of when I first saw your work, when you left Fabrica. I remember it very well because I was finishing college. You did two things that I remember specifically: the ArtQuitect sink in the Barcelona neighbourhood of El Born, and the giant ceramic cactus.
I remember the washroom at the Forum, at an expo of the Delta Awards organised by Adifad. There were lots of people, lots of students, and at the end of the event there was a stampede of people taking pieces from the expo. Everybody did it. I ended up taking one of your little vases that was over the sink. I gave it to my mother. If it’s for your mother, stealing is fine.

I remember that expo perfectly. It was crazy.

Very unusual. That time was your beginnings as an independent designer, wasn't it?

Yes. Then you exploded. And you came to Barcelona.

Yes, and that's where my relationship with BD and Metalarte started. In fact, all this started with the Palomba family, designers from Milan who were doing the Flaminia showroom. The Palombas saw my ceramic cacti at an art show—I didn't really have any designed objects then, apart from a candle holder by Bosa that the Palombas had commissioned—and they said, ‘Can we put the cacti in the showroom? We love them’.
As ArtQuitect distributed pieces by Palomba and Flaminia, they thought, ‘Why don't we ask Jaime to do something with those sculptures?’ And Ramón Úbeda, who was working there at the time, said, ‘Why would he make something decorative if he can make a functional piece? Let him make a sink’.

You made a sink that incorporated a mirror and a lamp.

Exactly. Then Alice Rawsthorn, who was in charge of the London Design Museum, saw it and liked the scenography and said, ‘Wow, we'd love to put this in the Tank’—a space they had on the Thames next to the museum, a glass parallelepiped where designers and artists were exhibited. As a result of that, ArtQuitect started to work in all the fairs, they started to sell the sink, and more pieces came out—that’s how the idea of doing something in parallel with BD was born, because Ramón also had BD at that time.

So BD was your first publisher.

Well, the first object was with Bosa, followed by Artquitect, Metalarte, and most recently BD. Afterwards I went to London, and that's where Bisazza, Baccarat, and all that started. More international brands began to arrive because in London, of course, there were lots of people from lots of different places. It’s also true that I never stopped making more experimental art installations.

The exhibition in Tortona. I remember that one.

The Pinocchios. Those experiments got other companies interested, like Established & Sons or Magis, for example.

How did it start with Magis?

You’re going to laugh. I went to see the Magis people because they were friends; I’d never thought about working for them. In fact, I went with my ex-wife, and when we left the meeting she’d been asked for a mirror and I'd been asked for nothing. This was intense: you go with someone who has nothing to do with design, and she's asked for something and you’re not. They showed me the whole company, but they didn't ask me for anything.
It started with Magis because Perazzo started to be curious about my work. The fact is that little by little, over the years and with experience, more clients began to come up and these in-between, art / interior design projects started to appear. We’ve always had the studio a bit between design and art. We work half and half.

I don’t think that choosing is necessary.

There you go. For me it’s a style. Although it’s true that when I paint, I paint myself.

Is this something that’s being lost? It's not the case with you—you paint, and very skillfully—but it seems that nowadays in design, and in creative professions generally, there are designers whose are very sophisticated in their ideas, but are very clumsy skillfully.

Well, there’s no longer any need for their handiwork.

It’s not necessary, but it’s a craft. It seems like manual skills are being lost quickly—not just drawing, but also building, generating, touching, and making.

That's true. I guess I’ve always been more of an artist in my head. I have both Jaimes in me. I always say that everything is united, but it’s true that my mind can go two ways. And one is very very free, where everything is possible, and that is very arty. It’s when I paint, when I draw, or when I transform something into an object through freedom, through the stroke, through creativity.
Because with design there’s only one thing that changes: functionality. If I make a jar out of cement and not glass, and I can't put water in it, it's a sculpture.

I'm not interested in differentiating between the two. But I think it’s true that design needs a specification at a more ‘useful’ level, and has to go through a series of phases that perhaps art sometimes doesn't need. I do believe that it’s reached in the same way though.

That’s a very good phrase; it’s true that you arrive in the same way. And I'll tell you something else: design is much richer than art at a material level, at a structural level. Really.
The thing is that you get there in the same way, but there’s one thing that makes it a real difference, which is function. When something works, when something is meant to be used, the artistic connotation is difficult.

I don't really agree with that.

(Jaime) Artistic in the sense that they’re a work of art, yes, but that they’re just a work of art. In my opinion there’s another step that makes one thing transform into the other.

(Claudia) But isn't it just about an intellectual gesture? Like Magritte's pipe.

(Jaime) I don't know who said it, but it’s the most interesting word: ‘elevate’, to elevate design. When you elevate design you transform it into art.

(Claudia) I wouldn't go so far as to deify art, as if it were in a sacred place.

(Jaime) But art is super elevated.

(Claudia) Elevated where? Define elevate.

(Jaime) To elevate is to position something that has a completely flat intrinsic value and then all of a sudden—SPLAT!

(Claudia) Ah, it has no mystical elevation. You're talking about money.

(Jaime) I'm talking about elevating in the commercial sense, in the sense that makes a Marc Newson piece worth three and a half million euros. But why do you think this is? Why is this piece more beautiful than any other?

Pure and simple speculation.

You know what? When you go to the tax office, in England for example, a painting is considered an investment. In other words, investing in banking and investing in art are the same thing. In the end, 80% of the world sees art, unfortunately, as a financial product. So when I say elevate, I mean that design hasn’t taken this step yet.

Well, it happens a little bit when the designer starts working with galleries, doesn't it? You do.

The gallery is elevating it, making it part of a wider culture, considering it, making the curators of prestigious museums consider that design as part of history, of humanity, of art. That’s true. But little else.
For example, when you go to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, you see that a chair by Rietveld and a painting by Malevich are being considered at the time. That is, there’s no difference whatsoever. One is as powerful as the other.

But that’s now, and it’s with time that they’ve been given that value.

No, of course. But the day a Rietveld chair is a Picasso, then we’ll talk about elevating. This is what I mean.

(Claudia) I think that has to do with quantity. There are lots of chairs, and Picasso's paintings, like that, there’s one and that's it.

(Jaime) Yes, but today Murakami has an industrial production of paintings. And Yayoi Kusama is an industrial designer who is 94 years old and hasn't made everything she’s produced for Vuitton. So, who’s the artist and who’s the designer, you know? We're talking about a very blurred line.

Yes, exactly. But what's really interesting is the result, not the line. It's speculative.

(Claudia) It's a tremendously lucrative line.

(Jaime) Super lucrative. Look, when you go to Art Basel and to Design Miami, you see that exhibiting at one is one thing, and at the other, something else. Forgive me for saying this, but I just don't understand how on earth it occurred to these assholes at the most important art fair in the world to take design and separate it as if it were another artistic concept. There are people who, I assure you, see this as a bestiality. Design could perfectly well be in an art gallery, but they've separated it.

(Claudia) Well, maybe it’s because they don't want to share the cake.

(Jaime) It's because there’s a brutal ignorance towards the elevation of design. There are museums that put a Frank Lloyd Wright chair elevated to the highest level next to a Jeff Koons, and it means that there are some people who have understood, but there are many others who don't understand yet. We’re in a moment of inflection, as with what happened to photography in the ‘70s, where Jeff Wall wasn't in a museum, he was on a billboard down the street.

With design it's complicated because it tends to be a repeatable, functional, everyday, industrial product. Maybe you don't want to be at that inflection point.

But the discipline has become an exercise in a very similar purpose, with an important narrative and a strong identity for the creator. I mean, all these things that other disciplines don't have.

The bar kicks us out. It's almost 6pm and I go with them to take a taxi. On the way I continue recording with my hand at shoulder height.



You’ve always maintained a very personal line of designs.

Well, I’ve been very cautious about this, in that every collaboration is a real collaboration. There’s always been an element of understanding, of being honest with the person in front of you, of understanding who you’re talking to. In other words, talking to Fritz Hansen isn’t the same as talking to BD. They don't have the same story. It's not less or more, it's just different. One does some things in one way and another does them in another way. I have to be Jaime for one and Jaime for the other, but also be both of them.
It's always you, but it's you translated into another language. That's what I think is so magical about design and really collaborating. It’s neither imposing yourself nor being imposed upon. It's saying, 'Hey, what are you offering me? OK, I'll bring the tomatoes’. And in the end it turns out to be a great dish. And we both eat it. I think that's what gives strength to the evolution of the work and what makes it a constant challenge. It's super cool to work this way.

A taxi approaches us at the bus stop. A Prius.

One last quick question, one that has to do with collaborating with design brands, and it's a feeling I have a lot as a designer. Working with brands is so slow, isn’t it? Getting a product out is slow—and it makes sense because it's complex, but it's very slow.

You can drive yourself crazy.

And everything is always very fragile. It can collapse at any moment.

Yes, and it can collapse for many reasons. Like all things that are made by many people, there are many opinions, many priorities, many investments, and many stages. The industrial project has always been complex; it's never been easy.

Long and slow.

It can be, yes, but if it works for you, it does for us too.

It works for me.