A-Collection by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for HAY (and Copenhagen University)

As already said, we sadly won’t make it to Stockholm Furniture Fair and Design Week this year.

However, we still wanted to bring you a bit of Scandinavian design flair.

Albeit Scandinavian design flair with a very strong Breton accent.

Back at Orgatec 2012 one of the more surprising new product series on show was the so-called “A-Collection” by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for HAY.

A truly delightful family of simple wooden objects, the collection principally surprised us because we had never imagined that the Bouroullecs and HAY would cooperate together – which shows how much we know.

At Orgatec 2012 we spoke with Erwan Bouroullec about the cooperation with HAY, recurring themes in the brothers work …. and why L’Oiseau. No, Why!

Until now time hasn’t allowed us to bring you our conversation: Stockholm Furniture Fair provides the perfect excuse to find the time…..

(smow)blog: If we’re honest we’re quite surprised to see a cooperation between yourselves and HAY. What is the background to the cooperation?

Erwan Bouroullec: The real start of the cooperation was a new furniture collection for Copenhagen University. The Humanities Department was being renovated and as part of that process they wanted new furniture that “re-humanised” the buildings. They had researched that students weren’t spending that much time at the university, rather they were coming to classes and then going back home. And so the university wanted to create an environment that encouraged students to spend more time in the university.  Some of our designs were selected but for various reasons they couln’t be applied – either from a price perspective, or because certain elements such as stackability were missing – and so when HAY approached us it was a natural step for us to develop something new.

(smow)blog: And this decision for wood, is that part of this “re-humanising” idea?

Erwan Bouroullec: We wanted to create something nice and simple; we weren’t really interested in looking for new concept. Denmark and the Nordic countries in general have a long history with and intrinsic knowledge about wood and so for us it was clear from early on that we would use wood.

(smow)blog: When we look at the A-Collection for HAY and the Osso family for Mattiazzi we see certain similarities. Is there a common heritage, or how do you see the connection…

Erwan Bouroullec: In our work we tend to keep everything to a minimum and so, for example, try not to use too much material or try to find clever ways of manufacturing and assembling objects, and on the other hand we always look for a little bit of magic, something extraordinary. And so there are naturally recurring elements and similarities, and, for example, in most of our works you can see all the individual elements of an object. One sees that in the A-Collection and in Osso but also, for example, the Steelwood collection for Magis and even the Alcove Sofa.

(smow)blog: And to end something we’ve always wanted to ask, L’Oiseau for Vitra. Why?

Erwan Bouroullec: It’s similar to the decision to show our drawings. We draw every day, we develop ideas every day and its important to sometimes let a little bit of this freedom escape. We draw a lot of birds, a lot of characters in general, and with Vitra we had the opportunity to release L’Oiseau and it seemed like a natural and obvious thing to do.

A-Collection by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for HAY (and Copenhagen University). Here at IMM Cologne 2013

A-Collection by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for HAY (and Copenhagen University). Here at IMM Cologne 2013

The chair.... (here at Orgatec 2012)

...and the desk (here at Orgatec 2012)