Ross Lovegrove

by Cristina Morozzi

He’s a visionary of our time, an evolutionary designer capable of humanizing the abstract forces of technology. His products reflect the value of our civilization and celebrate the emerging scientific potential of the present era.

As a journalist, it is hard to provide a profile of Ross Lovegrove, because he distrusts the media. There is such vital engagement in his work that it is hard to convey an idea of the generative process of his products, of the passionate and constantly evolving research involved in his design method (50% of the work in his London studio is research). To talk about him it might be better to only use the future tense: every project has to do with the development and possibilities of improving human conditions: from wind and solar power to mountain refuges, like the recent Alpine Capsule presented in December 2008 in Val Badia, like a shiny raindrop, run by wind and solar energy; the solar vehicles, transparent bubbles with a hydraulic lifting system that allows parked cars t become streetlights; the solar lamps (his Solar Bud for Luceplan, on sale since 1998, was one of the first); all the way to the carbon fiber suitcase made by Globetrotter (2008), weighing just 1300 grams. His forms that might rather hastily be described as organic, stealing daring morphologies from nature, are the result of complex digital processing. “My studio”, he says, “is 100% digital. I always think in 3D”. It’s hard to find images and words to document the genesis of a visionary design path, directed toward non-negotiable objectives. Ross uses all his undeniable charisma, his gift of gab, to convince clients to do something incredible. “You have to always be something more than a designer”, he says, “a politician, a writer, an anthropologist, a philosopher, a scientist... Many different interests have to converge. You have to make contacts, be available, find the chemistry”. Seeing him at work with students, listening to him explain his projects, you realize how he distributes ‘enzymes’ generously, without paying attention to the clock, willing to take questions, and to take the time to answer them well. If he puts even a small percentage of the attention he pays to his students into his works, his demanding approach to clients, not only in financial terms but also when it comes to freedom of expression and involvement in processes of production and communication, should come as no surprise. “I have to be the art director of everything”, he explains. “For my book I chose and paid the photographer, I wrote the texts... The object you have created cannot be left in the hands of an ad agency that doesn’t understand its philosophy, and photographs it in the wrong way. It would be something like giving your own child away”. Designers should be involved in all aspects of the life of a product, and have an overall view of the company with which they are working. This is why he distrusts the press, and is reluctant to supply images. It might seem like arrogance, but instead it is just the fear of being misunderstood: the finished product, especially in standard pictures, seldom manages to convey all the complexity of the process. The fluid forms and light structures that seem to blossom naturally are actually the result of long hours of work of the whole studio, almost like an artist’s atelier, which costs time and, therefore, money. “For every one of my products”, he says, “about 15 people work for an average of five years. How can a page in a magazine showing several products convey any idea of this effort?”. This difficulty in being represented by commercial companies has led to the gradual transformation of the designer into a trademark, with the temptations of the one-off, or the limited edition, to be sold only in galleries. Finding companies with which to establish a dialogue and a ‘chemistry’ is demanding work, and there are no breaks, not even at Christmas: he is always traveling, at different latitudes, often in Italy, a country where things get done. “You have to fly, talk, write, handle business relationships, manage money, draw and spend time in factories”, he says. “Like a cat, you have to have nine lives”. Ross plans on keeping the stakes high. He doesn’t want to end up making superficial stuff for clients with whom “there is no chemistry”. He has built a reputation and intends to conserve it. He is demanding, because he invests lots of passion in his work, because he is honest and avoids doing projects with competing firms. For some companies, like the Turkish firm VitrA, a maker of bath fixtures, he is also a kind of ambassador of the brand. “I am the designer, so I don’t talk nonsense and I know how to talk about the company with great conviction”. When he presents his work he uses a screen that functions as the sum of a range of images: his works, nature (a seashell, a butterfly), and more. There is also the photograph of a Samurai, whose armor of silk and bamboo can stop arrows: an effective metaphor for the concepts of lightness and strength. And a way of underlining the importance of historical values. “There is no form of knowledge”, Ross says, “that does not come from the past”. But then he confesses that he also works with instinct. He cares about producing beautiful forms: he would like to give his solar lamps the beauty of the sun. He wants to create an alternative, light, biological and technological aesthetic, connected with nature. But above all, with his projects, he wants to educate, producing higher levels of quality, and teaching the language of survival one learns from nature. An urgent need to communicate, to explain that one can travel by train, enjoying the landscape; so he shows a futuristic image of a train with cars furnished like the hall of a hotel. He wants to explain that in urban centers it is possible to use electric cars that are like transparent bubbles, that you can live at an altitude of 2000 meters, protected and cuddled as if in a shell, without consuming electricity (Alpine Capsule, Moritz Craffonara), or that it is possible to light cities with solar lamps with the form of a tree (Solar lamp, Artemide 2008). Listening to him narrate these visions to the students of the Polytechnic Design School in Milan, where he conducted a workshop on solar urban lighting (September 2009), with the fervor of a missionary in spite of the fact that he just got in from a trip to Mumbai – where he did a conference and met with a group of local businessmen – one realizes that he really does have nine lives. Let’s hope he continues to use them to keep the ethical value of his projects at the highest levels.