They say it’s scary meeting your heroes. It’s a fear of disappointment – the worry that they are not going to live up to your expectations. Well last night’s Marc Newson profile on the BBC’s excellent arts culture strand, Imagine, contained no such disappointment. What a delightful character Newson turns out to be.
In his Paris home, full of beautiful objects, his favorite item happens to be not one of his own pieces (he actually owns very little of his own work) but a set of Seven Samurai action figures, and this is an indication of the humble and playful nature of the man. It is easy to forget that he is the creator of the most expensive piece of furniture by a living designer ever to sell at auction, the Lockheed Lounge (pictured above), which went for an estimated £2.4m at Christies in 2007.
A self confessed geek, he explains that when it comes to excellence in industrial design, it is an obsession with the minutiae of detail that sets apart the men from the boys . Evidence of this obsession is provided by a table in his dining room, the underside of which is perfectly milled into a beautiful cellular structure. No one is ever likely to see it but the point is he knows it’s there..!
I have always been a huge fan of Marc Newson’s work – I am also now a fan of the man himself.
+ Marc Newson profile on designboom
+ New York Times feature
UPDATE: You can now view the BBC Imagine programme, Marc Newson – Urban Spaceman here on YouTube .
I really enjoyed Urban Spaceman too. I could quite happily live in a world where everything was designed by Marc Newson, and how many blokes would wear yellow trousers. Wish he could come and help me design my carnival band.
Did you also notice that in the part of the programme where they were discussing his space tourism vehicle, the yellow of his trousers was an exact match of the shade of yellow used in the trim detail of the cabin interior..?!
I am also a big fan of Marc newson but i can not watch it. I wish i can see it from somewhere outside UK. I try to download this program from bbc iplayer but it won’t allow me to download outside UK. Can anyone watch this program online?
If someone live in UK can help his fan to download from here would be great.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer