Bouroullec Brothers: A creative dialogue between two radical moderns, The

Graphis, Jul/Aug 2003 by Braunstein, Chloe

Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec are the rising stars of today's latest wave of French designers. In 2002 the Design Museum of London paid them a glowing tribute in the form of a retrospective. In early 2004, it will be at MOCA in Los Angeles, along with a Phaidon monograph scheduled to be released in Fall 2003. Over their past five years of collaboration, the two brothers have created objects with clean lines that answer today's search for a new vocabulary. They are in quest of designing objects that, above all, appeal to the user. Graphis had the pleasure of interviewing this modern, unassuming pair with a flair for intuitive solutions.

The two brothers have clearly defined their roles and seen to it that things run smoothly. Ronan, 31, the older of the two, says that at first it was he who came up with the ideas and his younger brother who carried them out. Confirming this assertion, the 26-year-old Erwan adds that this is what enabled him to put all his energy into giving shape to certain ideas. Thus, their very conversation is like a game of ping-pong: Ronan gets the ball going and, while stopping to think, gives his turn to his brother Erwan, who picks it up by finishing off what Ronan had to say before introducing a new idea that sends the ball back to Ronan.

After obtaining a degree from the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs in Paris in 1995, Ronan set off on his career as a designer with a "split up and module-like" kitchen that he had begun designing a year earlier for the V.I.A. (Valorisation de l'Innovation dans l'Ameublement). Meanwhile, Erwan was studying at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Cergy-Pontoise: upon graduation in 1998, he joined up with his brother. In no time, their teamwork had them off and going, earning more than a fair share of media publicity and respect. Jasper Morrison-quick to recognize a good thing when he sees it-decided to show a large selection of their work in the International Year Book that he headed in 1999. What an entree for such a young pair! The Bouroullec brothers are great admirers of Morrison. They feel his work comes close to a certain quest for an object that reflects its unpretentiousness. An admiration all the stronger at the time because of the lingering Starckian influence that, since the early 1980s, rendered French design so highly expressive and showy.

The seeds of discord might well have been sown by two brothers working on the same projects. In actual practice, however, they share out the work between them most naturally, without even having to consult about it. As Ronan explains, "It's the pooling of our know-how that spells the success of our objects. It's a matter of good will and appreciating the true worth of the best in each of us." Project ideas are reviewed at their light-flooded agency, housed in a converted factory in Saint Denis, next to Paris. Here the two brothers, natives of Quimper in Brittany, sit face to face to examine project sketches, an approach they feel is the best way to confront their respective creative lines of thought. Thus, during this first exchange of ideas, "one shape stands out from all the others for one of us and provides the guidelines for developing the project as a whole. The other thinks over various aspects (how practical it is to hold, what it weighs, the kinds of surfaces) before incorporating it and linking it to the rest of the stages of the project." Depending on what sort of project is involved, the brothers's interest may differ. But here again, the potentially conflictual ends up as a mutual enrichment of their creativity: "Our projects never duplicate each other," Erwan notes, "and that is undoubtedly because of how we're organized: When one of us comes up with a good idea, the other one takes it over without feeling frustrated." On the other hand, both openly admit that their work is strongest when they disagree, since this incites them to push each other to extremes that spur their creativity. A loose consensus, they feel, inevitably leads to mediocre solutions.

The brothers do not use the same tools. As indispensable as the computer has become to the realm of contemporary design, neither of the two hesitates to resort to pencil and paper. Erwan is more attracted to digital technology than his brother, but both maintain that it has nothing to do with generation, education or training. Ronan makes clear that, in their case, doing the sketches by hand is rooted more deeply in their complementarity as designers. All through the elaboration of a project, the two brothers seek a balance between sketches expressing a certain sensitivity and computer-assisted drawings delimited by certain norms. Once each has managed to set down the general outlines of an idea, they can begin exchanging drawings, with Ronan translating the sensitivity-factor while Erwan combines sketchpad and computer. This procedure is clearly based on a constant exchange of ideas rather than an overly rigid organizational framework. Erwan stipulates that he uploads the data into the computer on the basis of the drawings that they exchange. He then prints out different versions of the product, which they work over together until the object in question takes the desired shape. Perhaps this manner of proceeding reflects their awareness of two major trends in the realm of object design, each of which resorts to digital technology, albeit to different ends. One borrows the hand-drawn rendering of an object to come up with "pseudo-traditional" objects, while the other produces objects designed in an unabashedly "high-tech" vein. The intuitive approach taken by the Bouroullec brothers delivers objects that refuse classification in either category.