Jonathan Olivares | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | December 1981 (age 44) Boston, Massachusetts |
| 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] [6]
Olivares grew up in the metropolitan Boston area, and skateboarded as a teenager. [7] He attended Boston College and The New School, [7] before graduating with a Bachelor of Industrial Design (B.I.D.) from Pratt Institute in 2004. [8] While a student, Olivares interned at Maison Margiela in Paris, where he worked on objects and interiors. [9] He was an apprentice to the designer Stephen Burks, and in 2005 he also apprenticed for the industrial designer Konstantin Grcic in Munich. [7] [10] [11] In 2006 Olivares began practicing industrial design independently. [12] His first office was in his mother's garage in Boston, after which his design practice was based in Los Angeles. [13] [14]
 | This section needs expansion. You can help by expanding it. (August 2025) |
Olivares' early furniture designs are explorations in various forms of metal. In 2007 he designed Smith, a multi-purpose cart made of sheet metal for Danese Milano. [15] [16] [17] Versatility, simplicity, and the use of a single, recyclable material deliver an environmentally friendly product. [18] The design is the result of balanced functions; a container, a side-table or seat surface, handles, wheels, and a geometry that allows stacking. [19] 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." [20]
Olivares 2012 Aluminum Chair for Knoll [21] is a technically advanced chair made of die cast and extruded aluminum. [22] The chair's seat shell is 3mm thick and has a shape that softens its metallic nature” [22] and its contoured shape is slim and comfortable. [23] The chair was commissioned by Knoll's then design head Benjamin Pardo (Olivares's predecessor in the role), [24] who remarked at the time about his protégé, "I work with people like Richard Sapper and Cini Boeri [...] Who am I investing in? Who do I want to make bets on for the future? It is very rare to meet a young designer who is articulate and intelligent." [25]
The Aluminum Bench, made by Zahner in 2015, is made from architectural aluminum extrusions, [26] that are normally used to support curved metal building facades. [27] The extrusions provide the main structure, joining the seat plate and cast legs, and are rolled formed to any curvature. [28] In 2017 the Aluminum Bench was included in the Super Benches installation outside of Stockholm, curated by Felix Burrichter of Pin-Up Magazine. [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. [12] [7] The daybed is strong enough to support the weight of a car. [7] This combination of materials results in a design that is simultaneously visually homogenous and celebrates the different materials used to make it. [12]
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. [32] [33] The store furniture is milled from Indiana limestone, a nod to the building's iconic façade made of the same material, [34] and the stock is housed in openly in sliding storage racks. [35]
In 2022 Kvadrat's New York flagship showroom, designed by Olivares, opened. [36] 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. [37] Square Chair, produced by the Italian manufacturer Moroso, was designed for the showroom and extends the spatial concept down to the scale of furniture. [38] The chair is made of two square foam blocks, upholstered with textile, that allow the user to sit forwards, sideways, and backwards. [39] With each block being upholstered in a different textile, the chair is a vehicle for larger compositions of color in space. [39]
In 2025 Pernilla Ohrstedt, Salem van der Swaagh, and Olivares collaborated on the design of Knoll's showroom on Park Avenue in New York. [40]
His book, A Taxonomy of Office Chairs , was published in 2011. Writing about the work in the International Herald Tribune , design critic Alice Rawsthorn remarked, "you'll never look at an office chair in quite the same way again." [41] Benjamin Pardo, who as head of design at Knoll prior to Olivares commissioned the work that led to Taxonomy, [42] wrote in the foreword that "this book is important because it covers ground that has never before been documented in a systematic way. The taxonomic approach provides neutral, independent information without judgements, aesthetic or otherwise." [43] [44]
In 2014 he co-curated (with Jasper Morrison and Marco Velardi) an exhibition called Source Material at the Vitra Design Museum. [45]
In April 2022 he became Senior Vice-President of Design at the Knoll furniture company.
Interior Design magazine describes Olivares work in a 2018 article as “spare and formally rigorous, often concerned with high-tech manufacturing processes.” [46] The art and cultural critic Drew Zeiba describes Olivares works as carrying a “signature elegance and simplicity.” [47]
Olivares is married to Hannah Hoffman, a Los Angeles gallerist who is a daughter of businessman and philanthropist Robert Hoffman. [48] [49]
Olivares's work is held in the following museum collections:
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
 | This article needs images .(June 2025) |
