Jonathan Olivares | |
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| 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] [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] and his first office was in his mother's garage in Boston. [13] His design practice is now based in Los Angeles. [14]
Olivares' early furniture designs are explorations in various forms of metal. In 2007 Olivares designed Smith, a multi-purpose cart made of sheet metal, [15] made by Danese Milano. [16] Versatility, simplicity, and the use of a single, recyclable material deliver an environmentally friendly product. [17] The design is the result of balanced functions; a container, a side-table or seat surface, handles, wheels, and a geometry that allows stacking. [18] 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." [19] Olivares 2012 Aluminum Chair for Knoll [20] is a technically advanced chair made of die cast and extruded aluminum. [21] The chair's seat shell is 3mm thick and has a shape that softens its metallic nature.” [21] and its contoured shape is slim and comfortable. [22] The Aluminum Bench, made by Zahner in 2015, is made from architectural aluminum extrusions, [23] that are normally used to support curved metal building facades. [24] The extrusions provide the main structure, joining the seat plate and cast legs, and are rolled formed to any curvature. [25] In 2017 the Aluminum Bench was included in the Super Benches installation outside of Stockholm, curated by Felix Burrichter of Pin-Up Magazine. [26]
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. [27] [28] The store furniture is milled from Indiana limestone, a nod to the building's iconic facade made of the same material, [29] and the stock is housed in openly in sliding storage racks. [30]
In 2016 Olivares turned his attention to textiles. [31] 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. [32] The daybed is composed of twill weave textiles, [31] 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] In 2022 Kvadrat's New York flagship showroom, designed by Olivares, opened. [33] 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. [34] Square Chair, produced by the Italian manufacturer Moroso, was designed for the showroom and extends the spatial concept down to the scale of furniture. [35] The chair is made of two square foam blocks, upholstered with textile, that allow the user to sit forwards, sideways, and backwards. [36] With each block being upholstered in a different textile, the chair is a vehicle for larger compositions of color in space. [36]
Interior Design magazine describes Olivares work in a 2018 article as “spare and formally rigorous, often concerned with high-tech manufacturing processes.” [37] The art and cultural critic Drew Zeiba describes Olivares works as carrying a “signature elegance and simplicity.” [38] 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." [39]
Olivares's work is held in the following museum collections:
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