Jonathan Olivares | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | December 1981 Boston, Massachusetts |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Pratt Institute |
| Occupation | Industrial Designer |
| Website | www.jonathanolivares.com |
Jonathan Olivares (born 1981) [1] is an American industrial designer and author. [2] Olivares's approach to design has been characterized research-based and incremental. [3] In April 2022 he became Senior Vice-President of Design at the Knoll furniture company. [4] [5]
Olivares grew up in the metropolitan Boston area, and skateboarded as a teenager. [6] He attended Boston College and The New School, [6] before graduating with a Bachelor of Industrial Design (B.I.D.) from Pratt Institute in 2004. [7] While a student, Olivares interned at Maison Margiela in Paris, where he worked on objects and interiors. [8] He was an apprentice to the designer Stephen Burks, and in 2005 he also apprenticed for the industrial designer Konstantin Grcic in Munich. [6] [9] [10] In 2006 Olivares began practicing industrial design independently, [11] and his first office was in his mother's garage in Boston. [12] His design practice is now based in Los Angeles. [13]
Olivares' early furniture designs are explorations in various forms of metal. In 2007 Olivares designed Smith, a multi-purpose cart made of sheet metal, [14] made by Danese Milano. [15] Versatility, simplicity, and the use of a single, recyclable material deliver an environmentally friendly product. [16] The design is the result of balanced functions; a container, a side-table or seat surface, handles, wheels, and a geometry that allows stacking. [17] Writer and curator Su Wu states: "[Smith] has capacity instead of categories, in which a table could also be a seat, perhaps, if you chose to sit on it." [18] Olivares 2012 Aluminum Chair for Knoll [19] is a technically advanced chair made of die cast and extruded aluminum. [20] The chair's seat shell is 3mm thick and has a shape that softens its metallic nature.” [20] and its contoured shape is slim and comfortable. [21] The Aluminum Bench, made by Zahner in 2015, is made from architectural aluminum extrusions, [22] that are normally used to support curved metal building facades. [23] The extrusions provide the main structure, joining the seat plate and cast legs, and are rolled formed to any curvature. [24] In 2017 the Aluminum Bench was included in the Super Benches installation outside of Stockholm, curated by Felix Burrichter of Pin-Up Magazine. [25]
Olivares has worked on commercial and corporate interiors, for Vitra, Dropbox, and in 2019 he designed a retail store for the Mallorcan shoe brand Camper at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. [26] [27] The store furniture is milled from Indiana limestone, a nod to the building's iconic facade made of the same material, [28] and the stock is housed in openly in sliding storage racks. [29]
In 2016 Olivares turned his attention to textiles. [30] Twill Weave Daybed, commissioned from Olivares by the Harvard Graduate School of Design for 9 Ash Street, was realized in 2017 with the support of Kvadrat. [31] The daybed is composed of twill weave textiles, [30] with its legs and cross beams made of woven carbon fiber, molded on mast-making mandrels, and its wool cushion dyed the color of graphite. [11] [6] The daybed is strong enough to support the weight of a car. [6] This combination of materials results in a design that is simultaneously visually homogenous and celebrates the different materials used to make it. [11] In 2022 Kvadrat's New York flagship showroom, designed by Olivares, opened. [32] Based on the square unit of a woven textile, the showroom is square in plan with a catwalk that allows bolts of textiles to be hung from it. [33] Square Chair, produced by the Italian manufacturer Moroso, was designed for the showroom and extends the spatial concept down to the scale of furniture. [34] The chair is made of two square foam blocks, upholstered with textile, that allow the user to sit forwards, sideways, and backwards. [35] With each block being upholstered in a different textile, the chair is a vehicle for larger compositions of color in space. [35]
Interior Design magazine describes Olivares work in a 2018 article as “spare and formally rigorous, often concerned with high-tech manufacturing processes.” [36] The art and cultural critic Drew Zeiba describes Olivares works as carrying a “signature elegance and simplicity.” [37] Writing in the International Herald Tribune about Olivares' book A Taxonomy of Office Chairs in 2011, Design critic Alice Rawsthorn writes: "You'll never look at an office chair in quite the same way again." [38]
Olivares's work is held in the following museum collections:
Ettore Sottsass was a 20th-century Italian architect, noted for also designing furniture, jewellery, glass, lighting, home and office wares, as well as numerous buildings and interiors — often defined by bold colours.
MillerKnoll, Inc., doing business as Herman Miller, is an American company that produces office furniture, equipment, and home furnishings. Its best known designs include the Aeron chair, Noguchi table, Marshmallow sofa, Mirra chair, and the Eames Lounge Chair. Herman Miller is also credited with the 1968 invention of the office cubicle under then-director of research Robert Propst.
The Sacco chair, also known as a bean bag chair,beanbag chair, or simply a beanbag, is a large fabric bag, filled with polystyrene beans, designed by Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini and Franco Teodoro in 1968. The product is an example of an anatomic chair, as the shape of the object is set by the user. “[The Sacco] became one of the icons of the Italian anti-design movement. Its complete flexibility and formlessness made it the perfect antidote to the static formalism of mainstream Italian furniture of the period,” as Penny Spark wrote in Italian Design – 1870 to the Present.
Jasper Morrison is an English product and furniture designer. He is known for the refinement and apparent simplicity of his designs. In a rare interview with the designer, he is quoted as saying: "Objects should never shout."
Ross Lovegrove is a Welsh artist and industrial designer.
The Emeco 1006, also known as the Navy chair, is an aluminum chair manufactured by Emeco. The 1006 was originally built in 1944 for Navy warships during World War II, but later became a designer chair used in high-end restaurants and by interior designers. In the 1990s, the company began creating designer versions of the 1006 chair, such as the stackable Hudson chair and the 111 Navy Chair made from recycled plastic. Emeco also makes stools, tables, and other furniture. As of 2012, more than one million Emeco 1006 chairs have been produced.
Knoll is an American company that manufactures office systems, seating, storage systems, tables, desks, textiles, and accessories for the home, office, and higher education. The company is the licensed manufacturer of furniture designed by architects and designers such as Harry Bertoia, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich, Florence Knoll, Frank Gehry, Charles Gwathmey, Maya Lin, Marcel Breuer, Eero Saarinen, and Lella and Massimo Vignelli, under the company's KnollStudio division. Over 40 Knoll designs can be found in the permanent design collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Richard Sapper was a German industrial designer who was based in Milan for much of his career. He is considered to be one of the most influential figures of post-war Italian design. His products typically feature a combination of technical innovation, simplicity of form, and an element of wit and surprise.
Niels Diffrient was an American industrial designer. Diffrient focused mainly on ergonomic seating, and his most well known designs are the Freedom and Liberty chairs, manufactured by Humanscale.
Donald "Don" T. Chadwick is an American industrial designer specializing in office seating.
Kvadrat is a Danish textile company that produces and supplies textiles and textile-related products to architects, designers and private consumers in Europe and worldwide. Kvadrat was established in Denmark in 1968 with deep roots in Scandinavia's design tradition.
Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec are brothers noted for their design work, which has been featured in publications and museums globally — and spans a wide range from tables and chairs to tableware, rugs, textile walls, office furniture, ceramics, art objects and urban projects.
The Centripetal Spring Chair or Armchair was a 19th-century American office chair, and one of the first modern designs for office chairs.
Rolf Fehlbaum is chairman emeritus and active member of the board of directors of Vitra, a family-owned furniture company with headquarters in Birsfelden, Switzerland.
The École cantonale d'art de Lausanne (ÉCAL) is a university of art and design located in the Renens suburb of Lausanne, Switzerland. It was founded in 1821 and is affiliated with the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland (HES-SO). The designer Alexis Georgacopoulos is the director of ÉCAL.
Hella Jongerius is a Dutch industrial designer.
Emeco is a privately held company based in Hanover, Pennsylvania. The Emeco 1006, known as the Navy Chair, has been in continuous production since the 1940s. Today, Emeco manufactures furniture designed by notable designers and architects such as Philippe Starck, Norman Foster, and Frank Gehry.
Konstantin Grcic, born 1965, is a German industrial designer known for his design of furniture and household products, some of which have been featured in design shows and museums. His design language is characterized by the use of geometric shapes and unexpected angles.
Zanotta is an Italian furniture company particularly known for the iconic pieces of Italian design it produced in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. These include the "Sacco" bean bag chair and "Blow", the first mass-produced inflatable chair. The company was founded in 1954 and has its main plant in Nova Milanese. In 1984 Zanotta established its experimental division, Zabro, headed by Alessandro Guerriero, with Alessandro Mendini and Stefano Casciani. Since the death of its founder, Aurelio Zanotta, in 1991, it has been run by members of his family. Zanotta's products were awarded the Compasso d'Oro in 1967, 1979, 1987 and 2020.
Jonathan Muecke is an American designer and architect, based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
