Interview with Gaetano Pesce
When does innovation exist? “When innovative languages are respected, from technique to the use of contemporary materials”. So says Italian designer and architect Gaetano Pesce, whom we meet in his New York studio, where he lives and works since 1980.
A leader of Italian Radical Design, Pesce is known for his multi-disciplinary, experimental and nonconformist work. Today he has permanent exhibitions in important museums and his work is still coherent with a path in constant tension between unique shapes and modern materials.
His answers always take you somewhat aback. Sharp and spontaneous, they reveal a curious personality, socially active and always connected to reality. From the recurring themes that characterize his philosophy and work to current events, Pesce reveals to us what he has learned during a career that spans over fifty years and what still ticks him off…
How to save the world? If you expected trite replies on sustainability and world peace, Gaetano Pesce answers: “What will save us is happiness in creating and human diversity”.
Your profession is that of innovator. How do you organize your research, from what do you draw inspiration?
Mine is not a scientific sort of research, I do not start from an organized foundation but from sensations I receive generally observing the street: how people are dressed, how they speak and move. Especially in New York where common people on the street often have spontaneous creative experiences that are then repeated in other countries or at a distance of various years.
People express themselves with the help of figuration, for example through clothes. To me, observing them is a way of thinking about possible needs in the world of design.
So inspiration to me is a casual occurrence that stems from observation of reality, facts or ideas. To me design isn’t a set of formal elements. I’m interested in channeling a content or a comment on reality.
How do you combine innovation and sustainability?
Sustainability does not interest me in the least. I believe in progress and if that entails risks for the environment, someone else will fix them. Think for example of electricity. If at the time someone had said: “electricity is a risk, let’s stop it”, it would have blocked mankind’s development. Instead, with the passing of time, given the importance of electricity, someone took the time to establish security procedures and necessary norms.
What are the three greatest discoveries of your career as a designer?
First discovery: that in architecture and design, designing has nothing to do with decoration and the surface of objects.
Second discovery: nowadays one has to be cautious about the political meaning of the term “equality”. If the world is globalized with regards to all men being equal, there will be an enormous loss. From what point of view? Individuals that are different from one another remain free individuals, with autonomous thoughts, they do not conform. Instead all groups that attempt to gather people in large mass movements – and here I become polemic – call on the mediocre. Every time there is an attempt at a group, and people come together, the result is always a compromise. The English say that if a group wants to draw a horse, it comes out as a dromedary, as in a badly drawn version of a horse. To me, these political acceptations of the words “group” and “mass” belong to the past.
This discovery had consequences on my idea of serial production. I come from the modern era of production, an era of standardization, that attempts to lower costs and increase profits. Today on the other hand we are witnessing an evolution, because the current technology allows us to create unique pieces. If before the defected piece was eliminated from the assembly line, today it becomes interesting because, in spite of the repression by the machine and the will of who produces, it came out with its own identity. In all my work I repeat that serial production has to create series of pieces that are unequal or dissimilar from each other.
In the future, for example, even the automobile industry, thanks to technology, will produce customized cars at reasonable prices.
And the third discovery?
The “well made” and the “perfectly made” are machine territory. But all that machines offer is without humanity, it lacks spirit, it’s frustrating. Instead I find that the “badly made” brings with it the idea, which is typically human, of error, and it can help in thinking of ourselves as able to create in spite of our defects. We are all creators, contrary to what education teaches us. And if we create we become happier. The idea that everyone can express innovation or search for innovation could help us live better.
Any advice for young designers looking for new materials with which to express themselves?
Go to chemical factories to observe those conducting research there. Often researchers discover materials they don’t know how to use, whereas creators, who are more accustomed to self-expression, have a wider vision than technicians. Unfortunately in schools students are rarely put into contact with sophisticated materials.
Years ago I was looking for a flexible ceramic, then I found a laboratory in Chicago that produced components for the nose of the Shuttle, both flexible and resistant to the enormous temperatures provoked by friction with the atmosphere. It was the ceramic I was looking for. I found out the material existed and was produced in the highest quality, sadly it was too expensive. I give this example only to show that if you search, you will find.
Are today’s design schools still able to actually teach anything?
Perhaps there are interesting schools around the world, but I agree with Pasolini, who once stated: “All schools should be closed”. Students should be able to take advantage of school funds to travel the world, so as to work side by side with the best professionals that have done something important and thus learn what schools do not teach: new knowledge. These experiences should be funded. I don’t think it can be done, but students should be told not to count too much on what they learn in school. You learn a lot on your own.
What do you find are the more promising directions design has been taking in the past few years with regards to the use of contemporary languages, and why?
As I already said, the third industrial revolution will be marked by “non standard” products. Today there are people that continue the work I started 40-45 years ago, and I believe this will bring an enormous revolution because it opens up huge markets.
We are on the brink of a period in which we will be pushed to invent and discover, therefore be creative. Creativity is this: when you create something innovative you are happy, and happiness is something everybody pursues.
Do you think handmade designs, one-of-a-kind and self-produced pieces will become available on the market at more accessible prices and if so, how will this be possible?
I don’t understand the term “self-produced”, but I think the market will include serial pieces that are unique. Our job as designers is to make multiple pieces, if then each one is different that’s a different story. They don’t have to necessarily be handmade, any manual intervention can suffice. What counts is that the materials – nowadays extremely alive and vital with respect to traditional ones – be let free, in such a way as to create one-of-a-kind pieces. Allowing materials to be free entails a more articulate process as opposed to what we would do by only using our brain, by strictly dictating our will on a developing material. I have always let materials loose and they have done extraordinary things. Better than I would have done on my own.
You live in the States, a country that you define as conservative. Having been a constant nomad, what country do you think a young designer would find more stimulating? One like the States or one that is more open, such as for example the Netherlands?
I think the mechanism is the following: an Italian should probably go to the Netherlands. A Dutch designer should instead go to Italy. The French in the States. Those that stay in their own country run the risk of routine, boredom, repetition. It’s not that everyone should go to Holland, also because in Holland the industry is run by four incompetents and the great Dutch creators all go to Italy, where the industry is more open with respect to innovative ideas.
When I left Italy to explore the world, it was the best possible decision, because it allowed me to understand our contradictions and discover an enormous creative variety.
We have to learn that Truths do not exist, there is no one logic for everyone, values vary. This is what I have learned and I’m convinced that it would be good for the youth of today to bear it in mind. The fact of the US being conservative is true for certain sectors, such as architecture, design, fashion – all that is newly creative. The States are a recent country, so they need certainties.
Why were you so critical towards Italy this year at the Biennale in Venice and the Triennale in Milan?
Because I think Italy is suffering a great deal. The governing class that should serve the country demands to be served by the country. These people have robbed us of our role as protagonists in the world, because in the past we have been a positive example for others. Today we are a negative one. The Italian piazzas are a model for many countries, as are the churches and other works of architecture that have become reference points for all.
We have lost this urge to create, our politicians no longer plan grand projects and so everybody suffers. The youth can’t find jobs, have no ideals or very few. Our country has been crippled, so criticizing it is a means of underlying that this situation cannot persist, or it’s the end.
Last year I suggested to the President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano, given the economic situation of Italy, to move the annual end of year speech to a place where men and women have brought prestige to Italy through their hard work. For example, why not hold the speech in a factory of Italian design? It would bring Italy prestige. It would demonstrate how dynamic the Head of State can be, bringing new ideas and inaugurating a new cycle: each year the President could speak from a different location of productive excellence, honoring the factory workers of Italian design.
He answered, kindly, saying he preferred holding the speech at his own home because it’s the home of all Italians. So, I countered, when I come to Rome, I’ll ask to sleep at the Quirinal Palace with an inflatable mattress and we’ll see if they allow me to…
It’s a pity not to understand what the country really needs. Among the services politicians could provide there’s the recognition of values that bring prestige and improve both the image and business of our country.
With your provocative work in Venice you suggested we should go back to what made us great: “creating”. With what projects to begin with?
Why does the bridge over the Straight of Messini have to be a copy of San Francisco’s Golden Gate? We can be more original than that. I proposed doing a bridge sustained by 20 pillar-buildings, each of which would represent a region of Italy and be designed by an architect native to that same region. The buildings would host both showrooms and hotels where each region could be on display and it could even take a week to visit entirely. This idea could carry on the tradition of inhabited bridges that Italy is alone in the world to have.
In addition, together with a team if engineers from New York, I calculated this bridge would cost 2 billion 800 million less than the one that is currently being considered.
If we want, we can go back to helping enterprises that bring innovation. And if we have innovation, we have prestige.
This is a path that could put Italy back in the leadership position it has always had with regards to creativity. Italy is a country that, compared to others, has only one natural resource and that is creativity, and we should play that card in particular, because the world recognizes this as our identity.
Italian design is by far the most advanced. And it will continue being so for quite some time. We don’t need schools. We need people who are willing to put in hard work.
What new form of lifestyle poetic will we need in the future?
Inequality. If we live in inequality we will always need to communicate, because those that are equal do not communicate. Unequals communicate. More inequality – not economic though – and simply more human diversity.
gaetanopesce.com
A leader of Italian Radical Design, Pesce is known for his multi-disciplinary, experimental and nonconformist work. Today he has permanent exhibitions in important museums and his work is still coherent with a path in constant tension between unique shapes and modern materials.
His answers always take you somewhat aback. Sharp and spontaneous, they reveal a curious personality, socially active and always connected to reality. From the recurring themes that characterize his philosophy and work to current events, Pesce reveals to us what he has learned during a career that spans over fifty years and what still ticks him off…
How to save the world? If you expected trite replies on sustainability and world peace, Gaetano Pesce answers: “What will save us is happiness in creating and human diversity”.
Your profession is that of innovator. How do you organize your research, from what do you draw inspiration?
Mine is not a scientific sort of research, I do not start from an organized foundation but from sensations I receive generally observing the street: how people are dressed, how they speak and move. Especially in New York where common people on the street often have spontaneous creative experiences that are then repeated in other countries or at a distance of various years.
People express themselves with the help of figuration, for example through clothes. To me, observing them is a way of thinking about possible needs in the world of design.
So inspiration to me is a casual occurrence that stems from observation of reality, facts or ideas. To me design isn’t a set of formal elements. I’m interested in channeling a content or a comment on reality.
How do you combine innovation and sustainability?
Sustainability does not interest me in the least. I believe in progress and if that entails risks for the environment, someone else will fix them. Think for example of electricity. If at the time someone had said: “electricity is a risk, let’s stop it”, it would have blocked mankind’s development. Instead, with the passing of time, given the importance of electricity, someone took the time to establish security procedures and necessary norms.
What are the three greatest discoveries of your career as a designer?
First discovery: that in architecture and design, designing has nothing to do with decoration and the surface of objects.
Second discovery: nowadays one has to be cautious about the political meaning of the term “equality”. If the world is globalized with regards to all men being equal, there will be an enormous loss. From what point of view? Individuals that are different from one another remain free individuals, with autonomous thoughts, they do not conform. Instead all groups that attempt to gather people in large mass movements – and here I become polemic – call on the mediocre. Every time there is an attempt at a group, and people come together, the result is always a compromise. The English say that if a group wants to draw a horse, it comes out as a dromedary, as in a badly drawn version of a horse. To me, these political acceptations of the words “group” and “mass” belong to the past.
This discovery had consequences on my idea of serial production. I come from the modern era of production, an era of standardization, that attempts to lower costs and increase profits. Today on the other hand we are witnessing an evolution, because the current technology allows us to create unique pieces. If before the defected piece was eliminated from the assembly line, today it becomes interesting because, in spite of the repression by the machine and the will of who produces, it came out with its own identity. In all my work I repeat that serial production has to create series of pieces that are unequal or dissimilar from each other.
In the future, for example, even the automobile industry, thanks to technology, will produce customized cars at reasonable prices.
And the third discovery?
The “well made” and the “perfectly made” are machine territory. But all that machines offer is without humanity, it lacks spirit, it’s frustrating. Instead I find that the “badly made” brings with it the idea, which is typically human, of error, and it can help in thinking of ourselves as able to create in spite of our defects. We are all creators, contrary to what education teaches us. And if we create we become happier. The idea that everyone can express innovation or search for innovation could help us live better.
Any advice for young designers looking for new materials with which to express themselves?
Go to chemical factories to observe those conducting research there. Often researchers discover materials they don’t know how to use, whereas creators, who are more accustomed to self-expression, have a wider vision than technicians. Unfortunately in schools students are rarely put into contact with sophisticated materials.
Years ago I was looking for a flexible ceramic, then I found a laboratory in Chicago that produced components for the nose of the Shuttle, both flexible and resistant to the enormous temperatures provoked by friction with the atmosphere. It was the ceramic I was looking for. I found out the material existed and was produced in the highest quality, sadly it was too expensive. I give this example only to show that if you search, you will find.
Are today’s design schools still able to actually teach anything?
Perhaps there are interesting schools around the world, but I agree with Pasolini, who once stated: “All schools should be closed”. Students should be able to take advantage of school funds to travel the world, so as to work side by side with the best professionals that have done something important and thus learn what schools do not teach: new knowledge. These experiences should be funded. I don’t think it can be done, but students should be told not to count too much on what they learn in school. You learn a lot on your own.
What do you find are the more promising directions design has been taking in the past few years with regards to the use of contemporary languages, and why?
As I already said, the third industrial revolution will be marked by “non standard” products. Today there are people that continue the work I started 40-45 years ago, and I believe this will bring an enormous revolution because it opens up huge markets.
We are on the brink of a period in which we will be pushed to invent and discover, therefore be creative. Creativity is this: when you create something innovative you are happy, and happiness is something everybody pursues.
Do you think handmade designs, one-of-a-kind and self-produced pieces will become available on the market at more accessible prices and if so, how will this be possible?
I don’t understand the term “self-produced”, but I think the market will include serial pieces that are unique. Our job as designers is to make multiple pieces, if then each one is different that’s a different story. They don’t have to necessarily be handmade, any manual intervention can suffice. What counts is that the materials – nowadays extremely alive and vital with respect to traditional ones – be let free, in such a way as to create one-of-a-kind pieces. Allowing materials to be free entails a more articulate process as opposed to what we would do by only using our brain, by strictly dictating our will on a developing material. I have always let materials loose and they have done extraordinary things. Better than I would have done on my own.
You live in the States, a country that you define as conservative. Having been a constant nomad, what country do you think a young designer would find more stimulating? One like the States or one that is more open, such as for example the Netherlands?
I think the mechanism is the following: an Italian should probably go to the Netherlands. A Dutch designer should instead go to Italy. The French in the States. Those that stay in their own country run the risk of routine, boredom, repetition. It’s not that everyone should go to Holland, also because in Holland the industry is run by four incompetents and the great Dutch creators all go to Italy, where the industry is more open with respect to innovative ideas.
When I left Italy to explore the world, it was the best possible decision, because it allowed me to understand our contradictions and discover an enormous creative variety.
We have to learn that Truths do not exist, there is no one logic for everyone, values vary. This is what I have learned and I’m convinced that it would be good for the youth of today to bear it in mind. The fact of the US being conservative is true for certain sectors, such as architecture, design, fashion – all that is newly creative. The States are a recent country, so they need certainties.
Why were you so critical towards Italy this year at the Biennale in Venice and the Triennale in Milan?
Because I think Italy is suffering a great deal. The governing class that should serve the country demands to be served by the country. These people have robbed us of our role as protagonists in the world, because in the past we have been a positive example for others. Today we are a negative one. The Italian piazzas are a model for many countries, as are the churches and other works of architecture that have become reference points for all.
We have lost this urge to create, our politicians no longer plan grand projects and so everybody suffers. The youth can’t find jobs, have no ideals or very few. Our country has been crippled, so criticizing it is a means of underlying that this situation cannot persist, or it’s the end.
Last year I suggested to the President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano, given the economic situation of Italy, to move the annual end of year speech to a place where men and women have brought prestige to Italy through their hard work. For example, why not hold the speech in a factory of Italian design? It would bring Italy prestige. It would demonstrate how dynamic the Head of State can be, bringing new ideas and inaugurating a new cycle: each year the President could speak from a different location of productive excellence, honoring the factory workers of Italian design.
He answered, kindly, saying he preferred holding the speech at his own home because it’s the home of all Italians. So, I countered, when I come to Rome, I’ll ask to sleep at the Quirinal Palace with an inflatable mattress and we’ll see if they allow me to…
It’s a pity not to understand what the country really needs. Among the services politicians could provide there’s the recognition of values that bring prestige and improve both the image and business of our country.
With your provocative work in Venice you suggested we should go back to what made us great: “creating”. With what projects to begin with?
Why does the bridge over the Straight of Messini have to be a copy of San Francisco’s Golden Gate? We can be more original than that. I proposed doing a bridge sustained by 20 pillar-buildings, each of which would represent a region of Italy and be designed by an architect native to that same region. The buildings would host both showrooms and hotels where each region could be on display and it could even take a week to visit entirely. This idea could carry on the tradition of inhabited bridges that Italy is alone in the world to have.
In addition, together with a team if engineers from New York, I calculated this bridge would cost 2 billion 800 million less than the one that is currently being considered.
If we want, we can go back to helping enterprises that bring innovation. And if we have innovation, we have prestige.
This is a path that could put Italy back in the leadership position it has always had with regards to creativity. Italy is a country that, compared to others, has only one natural resource and that is creativity, and we should play that card in particular, because the world recognizes this as our identity.
Italian design is by far the most advanced. And it will continue being so for quite some time. We don’t need schools. We need people who are willing to put in hard work.
What new form of lifestyle poetic will we need in the future?
Inequality. If we live in inequality we will always need to communicate, because those that are equal do not communicate. Unequals communicate. More inequality – not economic though – and simply more human diversity.
gaetanopesce.com
23 December 2011
4.3/5
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