I saw this. I didn't know anything about these guys. Not sure what to think but I have to say that Bruce Mau is the first optimistic person I've heard in a very long time. It was sort of refreshing.
- jim 12-01-2004 6:59 pm [add a comment]

i thought so too.

massive change is the show he mentioned being involved with right now.

sottsass is kind of nutty but wonderfull with that changing (saving) the world for the better through design stuff.


- bill 12-01-2004 7:17 pm [add a comment]

Michael Edwards for The New York Times
Bruce Mau
QUESTIONS FOR BRUCE MAU

Designs for Living
Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON

Published: September 26, 2004

Your new exhibition on the future of design, ''Massive Change,'' is opening at the Vancouver Art Gallery this Friday. Isn't it a conflict of interest for a designer to curate a survey of contemporary design? No, because there are literally hundreds of designers in the show, but I'm not in it. Someday maybe there will be a show of my work. Does anyone call you Chairman Mau? My wife does. So what's the idea behind ''Massive Change''? There's a design revolution coming out of North America. It dares to imagine the welfare of the entire human race. You mean, like the iPod? No. It's not interesting to me. One of the most important things we did was take the visual out of design. But why? Lately, we have seen so many handsome industrial products, like the flat screen, which looks like a Minimalist sculpture. A flat screen hardly makes a difference in the world, and it pales in comparison to the things in this exhibition. Zeeweed is a perfect example. Put raw sewage in at one end and you get pure H2O at the other. It was invented by a water company. So you're talking about ecologically minded engineering as opposed to good-looking objects. I try to stay away from art. If you said to me, ''Make something,'' I would say, ''What?'' I wouldn't have the foggiest idea of what to do. Yet our leading architects are celebrated as art stars. I just got back from the new Venice Architecture Biennale. There isn't one apartment building in it. Almost the entire exhibition is about formal issues. Eight percent of Americans live in mobile homes, but I have yet to meet a mobile-home architect. The entire field of architecture turns away from it, because it's mass production. Mass production hasn't kept gifted designers from going into car design. If automotive design were advancing at the rate of architecture, our cars would still be made of wood. I overheard the most amazing thing recently. Daniel Libeskind was saying, ''I hope that democracy doesn't limit my height.'' I assume he was referring to the height of his work at Ground Zero. Yes, it's about the narcissism of small difference. Nice phrase. Is it yours? No, it's Freud. It means I am unique because my hair is slightly different from yours. You collaborated with Rem Koolhaas on his manifesto-book, ''S,M,L,XL.'' What do you think of his design of the Prada store in SoHo? I think the current obsession with Minimalism should be retired as soon as possible. What aesthetic should designers embrace instead? The richness of the marketplace. But your firm is best-known for upscale projects, like the publications of the Getty Museum. A good example of what we do now is that we are being asked to work on a vision for the future of Guatemala. How can we design Guatemala over the next 10 years? Is this the beginning of designer countries? It's a combination of understanding a vision and using that vision to distribute possibility. How would you redesign yourself? That's a big project
- bill 12-01-2004 7:22 pm [add a comment]