On July 16th DesignTalks met Matalì Crasset. In this lecture at SPD she discusses some of her ideas on design and logics of living. After graduating in 1991 French designer Matali Crasset worked for the designer Denis Santachiara in Milan and returned to Paris in 1993 to work for Philippe Starck, first in his own studio and then as head of design at the Thomson Multimedia electronics group. She opens her own firm in 11998 and some years later she created the Matali Crasset Productions.
Today she works with the most renowned companies worldwide: Authentics, Artemide, Dornbracht, Edra, Hermes, LaCie, Lexon, Thomson Multimedia among the others. In her works she adopts a clean methodology questioning the evidence of the codes that rule our daily life. Thus she develops new typologies around the principles of modularity, flexibility, network which also address the fundamental needs of mobility and freedom.
She imposed her work refusing the pure shape and pursuing an ongoing research based on hypothesis. Some of her major projects include the temporary site of the Stedelijk Museum’s–Hertogenbosch as well as the Hi-Hôtel, experimental hotel in Nice designed according to nine unique concepts, nine ways of living in a given area each of which involves a different level of experimentation, breaking certain domestic codes—or even hotel codes.