Written by Maria Christina Didero, and published in LOFT The Nordic BOOKAZINE Volume #13
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After school in the Netherlands, fame came fast. In 1995 he opened his own studio Wanders Wonders, and in 2001 the Marcel Wanders Studio, based in Amsterdam. His popularity boomed with the iconic lightweight Knotted Chair which he produced for Droog Design in 1996, an astonishing combination of macramé and high tech, a surprising marriage of handcraft and industrial production thanks to a rope-like thread made of carbon and aramide fibres braided together and then knotted into the shape of a chair before being impregnated with epoxy resin. The chair is then hung up to dry, and gravity determines its final form.

He confirmed his unique and well recognisable talent with the high-end design label Moooi – try to pronounce moy, which is Dutch for beautiful but spelt with an extra ‘o’ to indicate ‘extra beautiful’ – the company he established with Casper Vissers in 2000, of which he is the art director.

Over the years, in project after project, he has produced objects that we just want to possess. They are joyful collections made of simple and sophisticated pieces, be they bowls which look as though they are made of foam but are actually porcelain, or thin couches covered with Hungarian tapestry. Marcel Wanders thinks sofas are boring! His solution: a completely modular seating system that can be covered in 20 different fabrics to be displayed in showrooms like dresses on a clothing rack. His portfolio includes cutting-edge work for hotels, restaurants, accessories brands and fancy books.

His adventures continued in 2005, when he co-founded Lute Suites, and then he partnered with Philippe Starck and John Hitchcox working with design focussing on the property development brand, yoo. Beside this, Wanders finds the time for awards-collection (maybe the only thing he likes to accumulate) and for an intense lecturing programme. In recent years he has set new standards in interior design, ranging from the Villa Moda flagship store in Bahrain to the Pharaoh-like magical beauty of the Mondrian South Beach Hotel in Miami. These projects, as well as the Lute suite’s hospitality concept in Amsterdam, and private residences in Jakarta, Amsterdam and Mallorca, all reflect his sense for the theatrical and remarkable use of space and textures along with the capability of giving a cozy twist even to thousands of square metres. Without repeating himself.

MCD: Can you define the stages you go through when working on a project? MW: First I start thinking, then I create a huge mess! I see tons of little juggling balls, all representing little ideas, I start throwing them up and see whether the balls together make an interesting solution; if not I take out some balls and put in some new ones. Only when the game looks perfect do I feel totally happy. Then I stop thinking.

MCD: What can generate a project? MW: All projects are a result of my curiosity. The project acquires a shape when I have the feeling of doing something special. It is a kind of ‘urgency of doing things’, I would say, combined with love. Projects start from the passion that, in combination with my brain, produces a magical start. It’s a step from soul to brain to produce good pieces.

MCD: Do you use a particular formula for your projects, or does this change with each one? MW: Every design has to grow to be its own individual, and it creates its own rules. With Moooi, we like to tell the story of every product, you just have to read the labels.

MCD: What tools do you use within the design process? MW: Any, there are no specific ones. We use computers, hand drawings, models, mock-ups, and all other possibilities.

MCD: So what is design for you, personally? MW: Things need to be interesting at any and every level, so I think design is the higher value of functionality. It is the ‘plus’ value.

MCD: What is the specific weight of creativity within a product of design? MW: The specific weight of creativity within a product is negative: creativity is lighter than air.

MCD: Are you manic about any special object? MW: Not at all. I’m not a collector. I love ordinary things, but have no particular addictions. On the contrary, I love to throw away things…

MCD: You are a designer and an entrepreneur. With regard to Moooi, what characterizes your way of leading the company? MW: We all have the need to feel special, to feel unique, to feel important, and to know that our lives make a difference somehow. We are different to others and we want them to know that. We are all individuals, but part of a big family. We all have the need to connect to one another, to be part of something greater than ourselves, in order to recognise ourselves in others. These are two seemingly contradictory challenges. Neither of them is more important than the other; both of them together will make you happy. It is Moooi’s quest to understand each of these two challenges and to provide an answer.

MCD: Is technology important in your work and how does it affect your products? MW: Technology is like a material and in some ways is essential. But technology is not the driving force. It is a creator of new dreams, challenges and solutions. Some external factors and considerations, of course, have deeply influenced my design work – the way we understand our culture, human needs and also our approach to technology. This is the basis of our innovation. Always! This is a huge area, which is good news! Fifteen years ago there was suddenly a new thing called a CD rack: people got addicted to CDs and they were dying to bring this new technology into their homes. They were so proud of it. Cabinets for CDs are just ugly, but they represented the new technology at the time! Now people don’t buy them anymore as they are just an ugly object. As for Moooi, I think our design distinctly shows the love of ‘making’, rather than showing what technology is capable of. Technology should be invisible and lead to function, but we shouldn't count on technology and functionality only, love goes to other things…

MCD: Where does love go essentially? MW: Love goes to simple things. We need a chair as we have to put our weight on it; a chair is an essential presence in the house. Important things are those which we’ll keep on needing: tables! shoes! We will need a table 50 years from now, and we will wear shoes as we will still have legs 50 years from now. These are the important things, not CD racks.

MCD: A piece of design you particularly like and that you would have liked to have designed yourself? MW: The Toilet Brush by Philippe Stark. I would have designed it just as it is. I think it is an incredibly smart piece. Going back in time, I really like the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh – the Willow Chair with the high back is just fantastic and dramatically catches your eye and states his presence.

MCD: How do you feel every day? MW: I feel romantic and poetic. I think a sense of romance permeates my life and my design. I try to mirror it in the products I conceive.

MCD: A thought about life? MW: We are all individuals with a need to be connected with something bigger than us.

MCD: What is missing in our world today? MW: I think we are missing one key element: respect. We should show more respect for our surroundings, more respect for each other, more respect for human relationships, for business relationships, for our planet which is critically damaged by our poor behaviour. We need to show respect when we look at other people.

This article was published in LOFT The Nordic BOOKAZINE Volume #13. It was written by Maria Christina Didero a freelancer in the field of cultural events.