Design Now: Martin Szekely

Beginning in the 1980s, the ballyhoo once associated with the worlds of fashion and architecture zoomed smartly into the field of design. Designer stars such as London and Paris-based Australian Marc Newson, London-based Israeli Ron Arad and France’s own master design communicator Philippe Starck have become more famous than their creations. Although his reputation among design professionals, aficionados and art collectors is equally renowned, French designer Martin Szekely has staunchly remained aloof from the fray.

Now the Pompidou Center’s monographic Szekely exhibition (through Jan. 2) will introduce—and, one hopes, explain—his work to a larger public. Entitled Martin Szekely: Ne Plus Dessiner (Draw No More), referring to his 1996 manifesto announcing his disengagement from a signature style represented by drawing, the show focuses on his production since that turning point. It is divided into two categories, limited-edition furniture and industrially produced designs, displaying some 20 projects in each.

Simultaneously (through Dec. 23), the Galerie Kreo, which produces Szekely’s furniture, is presenting a show of his new UNITS, adaptable and extendable shelving and storage towers made of a new kind of plaster, the result of the designer’s latest experiments with materials.

Ultra-discreet he may be, but Szekely’s limited “research” editions have made him a collector’s favorite. Admirers include French tycoon François Pinault; the late Hermès CEO Jean-Louis Dumas and his architect wife Rena; French film producer and founder of the MK2 cinema chain, Marin Karmitz; couturier Azzedine Alaïa and fashion superstar Karl Lagerfeld, who bought a Soleil Noir mirror and commissioned two ten-foot-long, metal-striped white Corian tables for his Quai Voltaire apartment.

Szekely has also attracted industrial clients from Dom Pérignon, Hermès and Christofle to Heineken and Perrier. His designs are in the permanent collections of the Pompidou and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, Luxembourg’s MUDAM, New York’s MOMA and Cooper-Hewitt as well as museums in Berlin, Jerusalem,Winterthur and San Francisco.

“Along with Starck, Martin is one of the major personalities of their generation on the scene,” says Françoise Guichon, the Pompidou curator of the exhibition. “They are both very strong, but very different. Starck’s work is designed to be communicated easily. Martin’s work is imposing, but it has nothing to do with the effects of communication, fashion or seduction.” Although, she adds, “there is refinement, and a lot of elegance and sophistication. That’s how you can tell he’s French.”

Szekely’s main concern, she says, “is looking for a timeless and universal quality in his furniture. Each object has an origin, a history, a story that he translates into a recognizable but transformed design using the most advanced techniques and materials. They are solutions at the summit of what we can do today,” she explains, “solutions he invents using materials like Corian or concrete with honeycomb aluminum, things that have never been used before for furniture. His work is complex and takes more effort to understand.”

To foster that understanding, the exhibition will be simply arranged, with each item accompanied by a text jointly written by designer and curator. Its presentation on the floor of the museum’s permanent collection of contemporary art bestows an artistic imprimatur.

The Chaise Longue Pi, a stunning arabesque designed in steel, lacquered aluminum and foam sheathed in black leather, a 1985 limited edition by former Galerie Neotù, is the only design that predates 1996. It is present in the show, Szekely says, “as a witness of my past”. With the Pi and other subsequent designs, Szekely was experimenting not only with cutting-edge material and techniques, but he was also creating new forms and shapes. But today he rejects the idea of new forms, opting for such timeless shapes as circles, squares and rectangles.

“I now work solely so the object fulfills its specific function,” he says. “I don’t work on the form, but adopt forms that are universally recognized and shared, not forms that belong only to me.”

It’s not exactly a matter of form following function, he explains. “I prefer ‘use’, rather than function, because use can exist symbolically. The little square metal pendant, Symbole, for Hermès is divided into two, so each person carries half. There is no function, but its very powerful symbolic use made it a success that sold tens of thousands.”

Cutting down to the essence of the object permits a multiplicity of uses, he contends. “Furniture should leave the options open. I conceive a table open to all future possibilities, a table to eat around, to work upon, to make love on.” Made of carbon fiber, resin and honeycomb aluminum, his Heroic Carbon is a desk, “but with the same structure you can have a dining table, a bed, a pedestal or a console, shelves, an armoire—all the topology of furniture. We’re making a catalog of all the things you can do with Heroic Carbon.”

Szekely’s approach to his limited editions is like that of a scientific researcher. “I impose my own rules,” he affirms. His mastery of advanced technology and unconventional materials results in such designs as the standout Soleil Noir (Black Sun) mirror; made of silicon carbide, just like the mirrors NASA used to photograph the stars, it provides an unequalled quality of reflection. Designs like this intrigue collectors and blur the line between furniture and art—a scenario he resists. “I experiment, but the collectors—98 percent of them buy contemporary art—use my pieces as furniture because they meld into the interior and don’t interfere with the art.”

Like that surprising black mirror, his industrial works often offer the unexpected: the Parrot digital photo frame becomes a mirror when turned off; the MK2 movie theater seats morph from two singles into a double Love Seat; the sparkling silver links of the Hermès Reine de Saba necklace look like diamonds at a distance. When he works for industry, says Szekely, “I look first at the brand and its culture. The rule is to make a best seller.” Some 20 million of his shock-resistant, wide-rimmed Perrier glasses, designed to complement the familiar green bottle, have been sold so far. Mission accomplished.

Originally published in the November 2011 issue of France Today