SALON: How has your approach to design changed?

- I think at the very beginning of my journey I was more like a free artist. He can afford much more emotion and expression than a designer. In his case, more opportunities for self-expression. Design is another thing. You need to think about real things - about the function, about the company, with which you create an object, you need to remember about this company's own culture, its background. So if we talk about how I have changed, then probably I’ve become better at understanding the real things. I began to more understand the culture of mass production, business. But globally, my approach to design has not changed much. My own language evolved, but one fundamental idea remained: I consider design as a symbol and a marker of the time in which we now live. I never left this idea. The design must comply with current technologies and materials.

S: Can you say that you prefer some materials to others?

- I have no special preferences. I worked with hundreds of types of plastic, with all kinds of glass, textiles. They are all modern. On the right, least of all I worked with stone and wood. Few know about it, but for the company RIVA 1920 I made the Forkola bench, which is part of the Le briccole di Venezia series.

S: What is the meaning of the term “modern design”?

- The word “design” has a very vague meaning, but already in it lies the concept of modernity. It is antonymous to such phenomena as decoration and stylization. If you say “design,” it is immediately clear that we are talking about things for the present, in which the outlines of the future are drawn. Therefore, the combination of “modern design” is something like an oxymoron, since any real design is modern. Modern things are those that are developed from scratch, based on the needs of modern man. Non-modern - this is styling, copying. Suppose a man came to me and said that he wanted me to create for him the interior of a restaurant. I do everything from scratch, think through the smallest details. I ask what kind of food will be cooked here, what kind of kitchen will be the main one, I will know if it is fast food or a cozy cafe, how many tables you need, how many people it is going to accept, what size the kitchen should be. Based on all these parcels, I form the appearance of the room. But, if someone comes to me and asks the restaurant to look like a bike park, this is already a stylization for a bike park, not a design. This is decorating.

S: To you, as a well-known designer, you were surely asked to design a private interior?

- This is just for myself. I have apartments in Miami, in Mexico City, New York. I designed their interiors by myself. Although there was one guy from Moscow, he wanted me to design for him something similar to the New York loft. This project was not implemented: the fact is that private orders do not allow me to do what I really would like. The design of the house is something very personal, I don’t want to work in this mode - to choose every rag for his bedroom with the client. Therefore, I work only on commercial objects.