Future Perfect
Monday, July 28th, 2008Future Perfect
Discover the work of Welsh-born design powerhouse Ross Lovegrove in this beautiful new book by Phaidon
Ross Lovegrove is one of the world’s most prolific designers, with a portfolio ranging from furniture to water bottles, from airplane seats to Thermos flasks. When he speaks of design, he uses terms more suited to a biologist, doctor or bio-engineer. In other words, his vocabulary, like his design work, is pervaded with an organic, natural theme that takes physical form in such structures as his ‘DNA Staircase’ or the iconic biolove bicycle.
Since ancient times, glass has been revered for the mystical, supernatural aura produced by the magical interplay of light as it hits the transparent material and turns crystal to liquid. Not surprisingly, magicians told the future with it, chemists and alchemists studied it and beautiful women desired it. Equally mesmerised by this versatile material, jewellers and artists started working with glass too, creating works of art that evoke every bit as much emotion and awe as gold and jewels. 
Fátima Quesada was scarcely out of school when she left her hometown Madrid to search for artistic inspiration among the bewitching monuments of old Granada. Thrilled by the ancient mosaics of the Alhambra, she developed a fascination for the mysteries of ceramics and promptly enrolled in classes. The next year was spent learning the basics, such as the physical and chemical characteristics of clay, production and colouring techniques, and artistic design. It was a formative year, marked most of all by her personal discovery of ceramic art, for it was when she moved to the Alpujarras that Fátima’s training commenced in earnest. “I was really fortunate to come into contact with so many outstanding experts—in the Alpujarras of all places. From Japanese master craftsmen to former NASA scientists probing the possible applications of clay ceramic products, I learnt more from watching them, talking and working in teaching courses with them than I did from official courses.” 