Hospitality Design - November 2016 - 111

[designed by local firm nArchitects]. This community center will be an
extension of BMW's MINI car brand and house a restaurant, a retail
design store, and a free space with wifi for open social human interaction.
ADO's branding will be discreet. Retail, hotel, and airline design
professionals should all take note of this new project. For decades the first
word was brand. We have reached the point where the brand can take a
step back and the focus can be on the people.

Who is on your list to watch in his or her ﬁeld?
I'm always interested in what French architect Laurent Deroo is designing.
The young actress Millie Bobby Brown who plays the character Eleven on
the TV show Stranger Things is really amazing. One major result of social
media 2.0 is that children are expressing adult thoughts. This is true in
fashion, TV, movies, and pop music. How does the hospitality community
approach teen power and decision-making moving forward? Hotel brands
will have to take particular note of emerging gender sensitivity, which is of
major concern to the next generation.

Do you agree that the KISS-Keep It Simple, Stupid-motto
applies to branding?
I am always on the side of simplicity. A goal when I'm naming a brand
is to find a single word (and this is a personal intellectual preference), a
five-letter word. When I design a brand logo, the solution is to use a flat
icon whenever I can. No illustration. No layers. The 21st century is still
searching for its own original graphical strategy. So much work is now
rooted in nostalgia. The internet, especially Google, reinforces younger
designers to look to the past to define the present.

Biggest branding pet peeve?
If the owner is not 100 percent committed to the branding solution, the
brand loses direction. I work in the manner of a fine artist so when my
work has been processed by a committee of people on the client side,
things have gotten interesting-usually diluting and weakening the work.

Highlight of your career?

Who's your coolest client?
I'm particularly fond of restaurateur John McDonald. He always trusts
everything I have named or designed for him. He understands that I work
from a deep base of knowledge, and I'm at my most effective when my
solutions are intuitive and free from group analysis.

Most inﬂuential cultural movement of the last ﬁve years?
Instagram has upended traditional intellectual and societal hierarchy.
The definition of originality is completely fluid today and will continue to
be into the near future.

Is there a movement you would like to see revived?
I'm not a fan of reviving any movement, especially when it impacts
contemporary design. I think the strength of any aesthetic work is
revealed by the context at the moment of its creation. An artistic
expression, whether it's ancient, modern, or contemporary tends to have
the most power to move me if I give it space to be itself.

Where is your favorite place to travel?
I love visiting Japan. Tokyo from 1960 to 2016 has a unique place in urban
design history. My No. 1 travel experience is Therme Vals [hotel and spa
complex] in Switzerland. No. 2 was flying on the Concorde, and my third
has to be sailing on [the late Italian industrialist and head of Fiat] Gianni
Agnelli's yacht Stealth off the Ligurian coast.

What object do you cherish most?
My watch. I own a model 4960A Patek Philippe Aquanaut that I have
worn every day since I purchased it 10 years ago in Bern, Switzerland.
Eyewear design is of special importance to me-I've been wearing
glasses since I was 8 years old. My current choice is the Scott frame by
BassamFellows. I use it for both my regular [glasses] and my sunglasses.

If you could have dinner with one person, living or dead, who
would it be and where?

That I'm still considered not just relevant, but also thought of as predictive.

I would like to share a meal with industrial designer Dieter Rams at his
home in Kronberg, Germany.

Who changed your career?

What would you ask him?

In the 1990s, I spent two and a half years in [Pritzker Prize-winning
Italian architect] Aldo Rossi's office. He had an office in New York and
an American partner, Morris Adjmi, who now has his own successful
firm. Aldo operated intellectually in a manner that was like almost no
one else in the architecture industry. There was a meeting room, and he
would go in there in the morning, close the door, and take off his shoes.
Paper, pencils, no technology, no reference books, no Google, no boards, no
meetings, no consensus, nothing. He would come out a little dazed, hungry,
a little more disheveled. And on the desk would be 20, 30 of the most
beautiful drawings. You'd go, 'Where'd that come from?' It's the 1990s-
he's already a master at his craft. By today's standards, it can't happen. It's
so ethereal, so conceptual, and it's touching. It's emotional. Aldo was
important because he showed me I can still live my life as a dreamer.

The obvious question: How does it feel to be the most influential industrial
designer in the world? Apple's product look is greatly influenced by
Dieter's original vocabulary. The general public has not been made aware.

What do you do in your spare time?
I walk. I've traversed the streets of many of the world's great cities. I
derive immense pleasure from navigating unknown urban geographies.
Walking was a key element of [social revolutionary organization]
Situationist International thinking.

What is your life motto?
Don't wait for a breakthrough, create one.

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