Jaime Hayon
Interview : 1

GG: How has the pandemic effected your practice?

JH: It has effected my practice in many ways. First of all I travel a lot – to meet clients, exhibit work and so on. So not travelling any more is like the biggest thing as I’m away 15 days, or sometimes 20 days, a month. I live my life in airports and planes. So that’s been a huge change. Also it has been quite interesting to understand that we can do a lot of things without travelling that much. But on the other hand I’ve realised that the biggest change of all has been the opportunity to sit down peacefully with the ideas. And that’s quite amazing. Honestly I haven’t done that for 20 years because I’m always on the move: putting my sketch book in my backpack and working in the plane or the lounge or in the hotel. Now I’ve realised that I can have a really easy morning and have a good coffee. I can chill out and still work with South Korea, London and New York. So it has been very interesting in that way. My perspective has changed a lot in the last weeks.

GG: What initially piqued your interest in Connected?

JH: I like that it’s a very international community of people. For me it isn’t always so important to learn who else is taking part when you’re asked to do projects like these. But in this case I was intrigued that it had such a variety of designers and, therefore, different types of thinking and ways of looking at this profession. So aside from liking a lot of people who were involved in the project, I’ve realised that the intention from the people that organise it is actually very good. There are two parts of it that I like: that you’re going to do something that has to be strong on its own but it also has to work in the group. The whole thing has to be strong. That idea is very exciting because a lot of the time we work on creating something but we don’t think about the overall look. In this case it’s going to be the opposite. I also like the idea of honouring something as simple as a piece of wood, something as simple as a basic material that has been used for generations and for centuries. I love that. We’re not going high tech, crazy. We’re exploring this material and looking to do something amazing with it.

Finally the theme is fantastic because the pandemic has effected us all. I’ve been working at the table in my home forever! Moving around, doing lots of stuff, sharing thoughts, working, having a wine, the kids making models and lots of stuff. So it shows how important this brief has suddenly become. It’s very, very exciting. I liked the idea immediately. Plus, we like the Design Museum in London and the people there too!

GG: What is it about timber that you particularly enjoy?

JH: I’m a defender of real materials. What I mean is that in my portfolio you will hardly see anything material-wise that has not been with us since the Roman Empire. I work with ceramics and crystal and wood and metals – things that have been used almost since pre-historical times. What I like is we’re going back to basics again with wood. It’s a material that’s alive; it’s a material that changes; it’s a material that challenges you. It has elasticity but it has limits. You cannot do everything with it. You cannot pretend to understand it properly. By the way it’s so sophisticated that it’s like red wine. It’s not the same to use an American oak, as it is to use maple. It’s different again if it’s lacquered because it will lose its porosity and the sensibility though your hands will be different. It’s a fascinating material. All the generations have used it to create something as small and incredibly delicate like a spoon to something gigantic like a Shigeru Ban building. It’s beautiful.

GG: What can we expect from you in this project?

JH: Very simple! You can expect something that you’ve never seen before because my challenge is to make an extraordinary piece and learn by doing it. I know the material, but I want to start again from zero – it’s about enjoying it as if I was a child and seeing what I can do with it. It’s almost as if I were constructing Lego. I hope it will look fascinating for everyone.