identi-kit
recently was working on: irregular trapezoids made of crystal and their three-dimensionality playing on asymmetrical volumes. I therefore proposed these small models to Shiseido and straightaway the managers of the company understood it was something very new. This is how I brought architecture to packaging. After 15 years this became the norm and architecture itself became a new expression of communication.
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And what opinion do you have of all this architectonic production, which might have cost an astronomical figure yet soon reveals design and technological weaknesses, deteriorating and falling to pieces? This happens because the architect builds too quickly and doesn’t have time to monitor everything properly and it is also due to his overenthusiasm for visibility. The true problem today is being invisible. Everyone wants to show their work. This doesn’t interest us since great architecture and great design is immense silence. This is the quality which should flow from every piece of packaging, design, graphics or architecture. I am interested in those projects which contain science, technology, innovation and where the creative aspect is considered in the same way. I would like to see a Frank Gehry metabolising other people’s cultures in order to create projects which are different from the ones he is creating today! It would be an act of enormous humility. We need more architects such as Louis Kahn, or designers such as Ettore Sottsass, than all these tons of cement which are soulless and void of philosophy. Architecture and design of today have to be filled with human qualities. Bottles and cases for make-up designed by design gurus, shops and showrooms designed by international architects. How do you see cosmetics in the future? The relationship between cosmetics and “cosmetic spaces” is being reinforced. The strategy of opening same name stores with the vision of a guru architect is invading the beauty sector too. And it is right that it should be so. I have been of this opinion from the moment I began working with Shiseido. It is a relationship which reaches from the corners of large chain stores to veritable one
brand stores designed by well-known designers who give a precise brand identity to boutiques, which have an identical spatial expression from Tokyo to Paris. This phenomenon exactly matches what is happening in fashion with the colonisation of stylists, who have opened boutiques all over the world, relying on designers they trust. Now, as consumption begins to slow, cosmetic research is focussing on design and personalisation as well as on the efficiency of the formulas. Bottles, packaging and jars are designed with a new balance between aesthetics and functionality and, if large groups are studying pilot stores for the first time, it is precisely to focus the strength of the brand, to affirm their philosophy and the efficiency of the treatments. In the new beauty cathedrals cabins and dynamic spaces are foreseen for providing the customer with a consultation. In the Rubenstein store, if my memory serves me well, there are different furnishings and forms depending on the length of the consultation. For a rapid consultation you can stand at the counter, while for a fifteen minute conversation there is a specific area where you are surrounded by gauzy screens. The future lies in beauty stores and design: a concerted study of geometries, sculptures, anatomical or architectonic lights and shapes where the products are the stars. But design is an added value which creates a breathtaking space. As well as architecture, what other stimuli or interests influence your design? Ancient Italian art is remarkable: the spare style of artists of the fourteenth century, the synthetic use of the colour blue, the perennial simplification of the sign. When the archetype is right it is eternal. Therefore, when I work I think of these artists, from Raffaello to Warhol, all those personalities who have managed to create true beauty. I also think of all those anonymous artists and they interest me even more because they have produced incredible work without being taken into account. In your opinion, in a packaging does the aesthetic part have to be more communicative, more linked to the brand, contain more writing or more pictures and drawings? Packaging cannot have too much writing. It has to