117
Patrick Frey was born in Seoul, South Korea, and is
now one of Germany’s foremost interior designers
and product creators. Based in Hannover, he and his
design team work for various internationally re-
nowned manufacturers across a range of disciplines.
Designs by Patrick Frey have garnered numerous
prizes globally, including the IF Product Design
Award, the Chicago Athenaeum’s Good Design
Award, and the Red Dot Design Award. Within a
year of setting up his own studio, Frey won the
prestigious and lucrative Lucky Strike Junior Design
Award for new industry talent, and his work has
since been exhibited in design shows across the
world. In 2014, he was awarded the Professorship
for Product Design at the Hannover University of
Applied Sciences and Arts.
FREIFRAU: Stella is not your first design for the
Freifrau brand. Do you remember the beginning
of the collaboration?
PATRICK FREY: Yes, and how! Five years ago
at the furniture fair in Cologne I got to know
Hansjörg Helweg for the first time. It was again
one of those years in which it was said every-
where that the principle of the fair was out of
date and had no future. When I went through
the fair, I discovered Freifrau’s booth and was
thrilled to discover a new brand.
FF: The Stella solid wood chair is now the third de-
sign for Freifrau. What is the essence behind the
design idea?
PF: Basically, I love simple shapes. Let’s take the
farm chair as an example. Good material, a
durable processing method and a clearly recog-
nizable purpose determined the design at that
time. I was also inspired by this for Stella. Our
goal was to create a high-quality armrest chair
made entirely of wood, which on the one hand
had a statically reduced visual effect, but on the
other hand turned out to be a comfortable seat –
true to the principles of the Freifrau philosophy.
FF: So what did the solution look like?
PF: To be honest, this task was anything but easy
and the design process was relatively lengthy.
The magic word was shaped wood, with which
we managed to integrate pleasant flexibility into
the backrest. We have thus succeeded in a true
evolution: a chair that is reduced to the essenti-
als in terms of form and does not lose any of its
seating comfort.
FF: Where do you see Stella integrated?
PF: In principle, everywhere – whether in a res-
taurant or at home at the dining table. Due to
the simple elegance of the chair, it fits almost
anywhere. I can imagine that people with a
penchant for Scandinavian design can find a
new and unexpected product within the Freif-
rau portfolio in Stella. Stella also has the chance
to become a new classic.
FF: Thank you for the interview, dear Patrick.
PF: My pleasure!
Find the entire interview on www.freifrau.com
During Patrick Frey‘s (*1973 Seoul/Southkorea) studies at
University of Hannover he gained experience by working at
a design office. In 2007 he founded his own studio, Patrick
Frey Industrial Design, after three years of working together
with Markus Boge at their design office Frey & Boge.
With many of his products, Patrick Frey won internationally
renowned design awards. From 2012 to 2013 he taught at
the HAWK University for Applied Sciences and Arts. Frey
has been teaching at the University of Hannover since 2014.
116
PATRICK FREY
