The Brave Work of the Bouroullec Brothers, This Year’s London Design Medalists

Since 2007, beginning with Zaha Hadid, the organizers of the London Design Festival have bestowed the London Design Medal on a leading local talent. This year, the prize leaps outside the U.K. for the first time — and breaks with tradition by recognizing a team instead of an individual — with the renowned product designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec.

While the Paris-based brothers don’t spend that much time in London, many of their signature achievements are connected to the city. In 2002, London’s Design Museum gave them their first solo show only five years after they had opened their studio. In 2011, the duo created “Textile Field,” a massive, 100-foot-long upholstered platform inside the Victoria & Albert museum’s Raphael Court. “We take the view that all of the international designers that come and work here are part of our design scene anyway,” says festival director Ben Evans. “We’re quite loose about that.”

The Bouroullecs, known for their simple, curvaceous products for brands like Vitra, Magis and Cappellini, have deliberately kept their studio small, with just six employees. By doing so, says Ronan — the older sibling by about five years — they can focus intensely on every aspect of their creations, from sketching by hand to color research. “The only good day for me is when I’m in front of my desk with paper, drawing or doing mockups,” Ronan says. “I hate taking meetings. I don’t want to travel that much. I just want to search and to concentrate.” He compares the challenges of a designer to those of a songwriter. “An Eames chair is like a Beatles song,” he explains. Like timeless tracks that never get old no matter how many times you hear them, great design should have “a certain lightness, a certain elegance.”

For their latest undertaking, a line of rectangular vases in mix-and-match heights and colors for the Finnish brand Iittala, the Bouroullecs sought to create the handcrafted objects in strict geometries instead of more traditional and forgiving organic shapes. “I’m not often satisfied,” Ronen says. “We refine and refine and refine.”

Evans believes that the Bouroullecs’ power comes from an element of bravery. He points to a piece he owns, the now iconic 2010 Lighthouse table lamp for Established & Sons, which combines a simple Carrara marble base with an oversize, hand-blown Murano glass shade. “They’re prepared to go for stuff and challenge people,” says Evans. “They’re more ready to have a curve, to experiment with materials. It’s really hard not to like their work.”