During Maison Objet exhibition in Paris this January, I had the honor to meet mister Arnaud Lapierre , while I was staring with astonishment one of his exhibits … the amazing 1=2 chair (credits and images can be found below). Coming back to Athens I had the opportunity to visit his official website and I came across more of his inspired and conceptual projects. Today, I am presenting you some of Arnaud projects and his 13 answers to the yatzer’s questionnaire

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yatzer. Describe yourself in five words.
A.L. Curious, greedy, obstinate, complicated and indecisive.
yatzer. If you could be a different nationality, what would it be?
A.L. Argentinian
yatzer. What’s your favourite movie?
A.L. I have so many favorite movies, let’s say Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind
yatzer. What kind of music you like to listen?
A.L. Electronic, rock and Jazz music, I like experimental sounds and clear voices.
yatzer. What is your favorite design material?
A.L. I like wood like birch, it is warmfull and very sensual.
yatzer. What is the most expensive piece of furniture in your house?
A.L. An Eames Zenith rocking armchair and a Bouroullec prototype chair bought on ebay.
yatzer. What inspires you?
A.L. Books, movies, and people.
yatzer. You are going for a weekend “somewhere” and you have to invite seven famous people, dead or alive to join you. who would they be?
A.L. André Agassi, Michel Gondry, Guy Ritchy, Kurt Cobain, Charles Beaudelaire, Charles Eames, Georges Perec.
yatzer. Are you afraid of the future?
A.L. Not at all, I can’t wait for the future. I am just afraid about human nature
yatzer. Describe me the perfect day?
A.L. A day without any obligation, I love Sunday, it is just all about improvisation.
yatzer. What does space mean to you?
A.L. Space is a feeling, an experience where the body is involve, about balance and sometimes, a feeling to be out of the time.
yatzer. Luxury is?
A.L. Calm and exquisite delight.
yatzer.Design is?
A.L. A question of point of view, a cross point between different knowledges and crafts.

__________________strip tease lamp (200 Imagine..walking in your living room and coming upon the electrical cable of the lamp that decorates your sofa’s side table..because it was ravelled. The result would not be pleasant at all..! Facing this problem and trying to add a new value to the cable part of a lamp, Arnaud has designed “the strip tease lamp”. The cable has also the function to be the lamp’s shade. Adjusting the light is possible by rolling up the cable around the lamp structure, more or less tight. Are you ready for a strip tease?

L’aberration | The Aberration (2007) If the hotel room is to be regarded as a rupture of the daily life, it becomes an exceptional place then, with objects which would question our every day life perception. The statutes of the room allow behaviors in aberration with our practices; a chair often loses its function of a seat to become support of our clothing. I propose to remove the main function of the chair without disturbing its iconic formal reading, but in order to disturb the user glance. A half chair stuck against a mirror, seems to be a complete chair, but having lost its function, the chair becomes servant through the appropriation of the occupant. The image of the chair comes to disturb a reality which makes able to affirm a new use.postscript | I am sure that it would fit great close to this ECHO SYSTEM-multifunctional furniture (image above) designed by Cedric Ragot for Roche Bobois . If someone from Roche Bobois is reading this post…do not hesitate to contact Arnaud Lapierre at [email protected] ,because “L’aberration” could be for sure one piece of Roche Bobois “Les Contemporains” collection.

La desinvolture | The ease (2007)
The hotel is a place in rupture with our daily life, in rupture with the daily constraints. Our practices are freed from conformity, and this kind of room accepts all freedoms, you are not responsible of this space. When you put your stuff on the floor, you make your traces, you print the neutrality of space, by let your stuff everywhere, you occupy this space, and you adapt it to you.
The door of the wardrobe lets to the occupant the choice to adopt a responsible or an off-hand attitude. The gesture of installation reveals another possibility of arranging its clothes, this is a disorganization legitimated by the hotel, without the disorder embarrassment.

La condition | The doorknob (2007)
This object comes from a collection for Hotel room project. The themes for the project were the city, the erotism and the daily life break.
La condition is about erotism and daily life break, An hotel room can be considerate as private sanctuary since you closed the door behind you and the door is a psychologic limits between your intimacy and the exterior life, supporting meditation, insulation, anonymity but also the erotism: to feel in confidence. I proposed a work around the door to express this privileged moment, particularly, to treat the doorknob to give him a statute evoking a disappearance symbolic system. The matter is to make the door dumb, to remove its opening function to transform it into a wall.
The blocking gesture of the door is the prolongation of the closing gesture, while pulling in the doorknob towards inside the room; you lock the entry while making disappear the doorknob on the corridor side. The door becomes guardian of anonymity, good keeping of a secret moment.

1=2 (2006)
Nowadays an object tells much more than just his main fonction, it’s an image who tryes to be narrative, semantic… How can we design a seat beyond its function or aesthetic ? Two notions of a chair interested me. First of all, a chair ; it’s a person; a personnality, a personification : clearly, an empty chair is the sign of a missing person…But it’s also an bject of hospitality : you offer a seat to someone as a welcome sign, and for his comfort…
So, from those two words, personification and hospitality, I questionned the chair and proposed a furniture which can pass from one seats to two, basically 1=2.