The Design of Jasper Morrison, a retrospective at CID Grand Hornu

The CID – Centre d’Innovation et de Design, located at the Grand Hornu complex in Belgium, presents Thingness, a retrospective exhibition on the celebrated British designer Jasper Morrison.
Household objects, furniture, light fixtures, and electronic products, designed by Jasper Morrison during his 35-year-long career and manufactured by world-leading design companies such as Vitra, Magis, Cappellini, and Alessi, are exposed side-by-side on a large bookshelf.

The bookshelf, conceived by Morrison in collaboration with the Swiss designer Michel Charlot, is composed of a timber framework with various-sized shelves, and, along with objects, it supports graphic panels with sketches and work notes, photographs of prototypes and installation views, that depict the creative process of industrial design.

Above: Jasper Morrison – Thingness.
Installation views; © Jasper Morrison, ©  CID, ©  photo by David Marchal.

The title of the exhibition, Thingness, is actually a declaration of love for the reality of objects.
Indeed, the vision of Jasper Morrison is characterized by a combination of rigorousness and irony; while his approach perfectly matches the statement Le Corbusier made in L’aventure du Mobilier: “Furniture is tables for working and eating; chairs for eating and working; variously shaped armchairs for resting in diverse ways; and boxes for storing the objects that we use”(1), at the same time such a “severe” approach is tempered with irony and serenity, qualities which not by chance are a common trait of all the greatest designers.

(1)” L’aventure du mobilier “, in Le Corbusier, Précisions sur un état présent de l’architecture et de l’urbanisme, Paris, éd. G. Crès et Cie,1930, pp. 107-122

above: Made for an exhibition at the DAAD Galerie (Berlin), Jasper Morrison © Photo Studio Morrison.

above: Thinking Man’s Chair, Jasper Morrison, produced by Cappellini © James Mortimer

Above left: sketch Polywood Chair, 1988 © Jasper Morrison. Produced by Vitra © Studio Frei
Above right: sketch Op La Table, 1998 © Jasper Morrison. Produced by Alessi.

Jasper Morrison – Thingness
10 May – 13 September, 2015
CID – Centre d’Innovation et de Design at Grand-Hornu
Site du Grand-Hornu, Rue Sainte-Louise 82
7301 Hornu – Belgique

The exhibition is co-produced by CID and MONS 2015.

Above: Jasper Morrison – Thingness.
Installation view; © Jasper Morrison, ©  CID, ©  photo by David Marchal.