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STORYTELLING
STORYTELLING
Rossana Hu & Lyndon Neri
Rossana Hu & Lyndon Neri
bring it to Europe and the world? Has the
added value been put on cross-cultural
Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese…)
handicraft and aesthetics based on natu-
ral materials and multiple traditional and
contemporary skills?
N.&H.: Yes, we do aim to bring in high end
craftsmanship from Asia on different lev-
els. From our role in the creative direction,
we have introduced one of a kind, heritage
type of crafts and bring them into the pro-
jects that we are working on, and we have
been lining up new product designers and
we would like to give them assignments
from those two aspects—furniture and
handicrafts—even if not mass production
but to work on limited edition offerings for
each collection.
Could you give the key for understand-
ing the living experience project, bringing
the holistic value of the furniture to life
that was a part of the Cabinet of Curiosity
exhibited at Spazio Rossana Orlandi in
Milan in April 2015? Does this project have
a metaphoric value in your creative direc-
tion for Stellar Works or has it evolved
since then?
N.&H.: We are fond of this project and
would like to see it continued and we
would like to see it maybe have different
variations and developed overtime.
You have shared with the public your con-
cept of an ideal house during imm Cologne
in January 2015. Das Haus could be add-
ed here as an illustration to your vision
of the living environment, including the
archetype of the memory lane, the visual
tactility, the praise of shadows, the ‘reflec-
tive nostalgia’…?
N.&H.: Das Haus does represent a small
slice of what we see as an ideal home
and that installation was specific to
European market and design community.
We brought a lot of what, in our opin-
ion, were more Asian ways of looking at
space, and we also had visuals and im-
ages of Shanghai, where we live, and
our locality. There are those cultural el-
ements and some of the fundamental
beliefs of space is that history plays a
big part of who were are and how we live
and how we should conceive of our living
space. We don’t want, nor do we share,
that idea of clean slate/pure space or
this idea of tabula rasa in interiors. We
believe one’s dwelling space should
include these personal histories and
obsessions.
What are the inspirations and the best
real-life projects of Neri&Hu featuring
signature collections for Stellar Works
such as Ming Collection, Utility Collection,
Jubilee Collection 1965-2005 and the
Mandarin Collection?
N.&H.: The inspirations are not any differ-
ent from all the other inspirations of our
work. They come from living and expe-
riencing life in Shanghai, and a lot of the
objects we come to see, and also from
a need – from the needs of the market
and a need from projects we work on. For
example, the Ming Collection was an at-
tempt at a modern interpretation of a Ming
Dynasty style of chair but in a totally new
way of construction, detailing, and even
form. We thought that kind of formal aspect
that design is able to offer is interesting,
because even though you cannot make de-
tailed references, it is still very much a part
of that collection. Utility and Mandarin were
foremost a response to our actual interior
projects.
As architects and designers, you’ve been
exploring the so-called ‘Asian Aesthetics’:
materials, process design and craftsman-
ship, involving a reflection on the history
and contemporary developments of archi-
tecture, furniture design in Asia and the
Western world (US, Europe). How have
those ‘opposite’ continents influenced
each other? How would you define Asian
Aesthetics? Would it be reflected by a tan-
gible object or by a collective experience?
N.&H.: I think anytime we are defined by
boundaries and margins it immediately
defies itself. Meaning, I think it is hard to
define aesthetics that way. I think that aes-
thetics, more than anything visual is more
philosophical, and so it encompasses a lot
of life experience and thinking about many
things—about how we live, about space,
about procession, movement, about cul-
tural practices and habits—how people
sleep, eat, drink water, brush their teeth,
drink coffee, make tea, boil water. So is
it defined by one object or a multiplicity
of practices? I think it is more the latter.
Definitely it is a collective experience but
rooted more in philosophical tenants of a
group of people within a time period.
Could you specify some typologies of
furniture design and objects you’d like to
explore or have already stressed in your
designs? I am thinking for instance about
the screens, the daybed, the tea set, the
cabinet making, the paper lamps… Which
ones could be relevant for future Stellar
Works’ collections?
N.&H.: Yes, definitely. We are interested
in cabinets and armoires like we started
with Cabinet of Curiosity. We would like
to bring that typology back as well as in
between typologies, like a chair and ta-
ble—combinations of things—like a sofa
with side table, or bed with bedside table,
or a table with a lamp—we are interested
in hybrids the same way we are culturally
a hybrid so typological hybrids interest us
as well.
This cultural dialogue between East and
West is often linked to ‘clichés’ or arche-
types. We’ve seen some luxury brands
like Shang Xia or Jia who have positioned
themselves in this sublimation of the
crafts by sourcing 5000 years of Chinese
history and bringing them to the contem-
porary living experience. What is your
ambition for Stellar Works?
N.&H.: Regarding cultural clichés, we
definitely want to depart from the ex-
pected and the clichés but this is not
an easy feat. We do want to be a part of
history and we do want to explore ways
that modern design can take historic ele-
ments and references to the future. Our
ambition? I think one step at a time. We
like to unearth hidden things about cul-
ture and history, so nothing that is too
obvious, but bring about relevance to
daily lives. We are more interested in low
culture, the common China more than
Imperial China. Maybe that is what sets
us apart.
We've seen so many influences from
Japan and China impacting the Western
world and vice versa. Just take respec-
tively the Muji period in Japan, or the Qing
and Ming periods in China. Would Stellar
Works take the same path by re-exploring
crafts such as the one of Arita porce-
lain? Are there other potential crafts from
Japan, China and maybe Taiwan you’d like
to redefine with your own eyes and sensi-
tivity, or the ones of other designers?
N.&H.: There are many crafts we would
like to explore but not specifically re-
lated to historic significance and how
they influence in the west. We are not
scholars and are not into re-appropri-
ating historic references, but we are
interested in the dying or soon to be lost
crafts that we could incorporate nicely
into the products and collections. Other
than Arita – similar to that history – is
Jingdezhen, a porcelain town in China,
Yixing, known for its red and purple clay,
which we have been exploring how to use
in a modern way and how it could fit in
with Stellar Works, and Weifang, known
for its black pottery. In addition, we are
looking at cloisonné, the French craft
decorating metal works—updating and
modernizing this process as well.
What inspired the development of the
Arita Collection, the first range of objects
and accessories for Stellar Works?
N.&H.: When we began working on the
project, Cabinet of Curiosity, we visited
Arita and we saw how the lineage and
history of Arita started to flourish when
China’s ceramic production was cut off
from west, so we thought this was an in-
teresting relationship between Japan and
China and Europe and that propelled us
to want to work with Arita. We visited the
museum and we saw the original finish of
the clay and we thought bringing that origi-
nal finish back would be something quite
meaningful—the light blue grey finish,
which was the final design we used.
What’s your vision of beauty (in the) East
& West? Gesture, grace, poetry, painting,
interiors? Are you more into artistic col-
laborations and installations in order to
highlight the qualities and values promot-
ed by Stellar Works as a design brand?
N.&H.: We are not quite fond of cutting
the world up into East and West even
though that is quite factual in how the
places are located. We are interested in
intersections and the hybrids. In terms
of artistic installations & collaborations –
yes we would like to explore this and with
artists who have similar visions and quali-
ties of aesthetics that we are looking for
and interested in.
In your design philosophy, you have a
quest for excellence. How does it reflect in
your furniture and architectural designs?
Would it mean that you’d like to couple
Stellar Works with signature collections
bringing more of an artistic value than just
design value?
N.&H.: The art value of design objects. That
is something we have been thinking about
in terms of the craft. We are less interested
in gallery pieces per se, but more interested
in the in-between artistic objects that are
for show as well as functional objects for
use. How could the introduction of tradi-
tional crafts bring into play the question
of where that margin lies? That is an
interesting question and that could be
conceived of as a design brief for a future
project.
Do you aim at developing more limited
and unique pieces within Stellar Works?
Customization being one of the leading
act of furniture companies nowadays,
it’s maybe a way to differentiate or to
upgrade a design that would otherwise
be seen as mainstream?
N.&H.: Yes, we are also looking at
bringing a few unique pieces within the
collection. Bringing about unique pieces
that are more explorative and experi-
mental. This is definitely something we
would be interested in doing.
Does Stellar Works want to become a
premium / luxury brand like Shang Xia
or Jia or be the first real design brand in
Asia in the field of furniture design? Do
you have a clear strategy on how fram-
ing future retail developments?
N.&H.: I don’t think we are looking to
be a luxury brand like Shang Xia, the
way that they are only gearing towards
premium and almost auction type prod-
ucts. We do want our products to be
used and embraced by designers who
are looking for objects to use in their
projects. So we want to be premium but
we are not luxury.
7 — Neri&Hu, Ming Chair
7.
© Su Li
