Design

The global ambassador

BY FRANÇOISE JAUNIN

 

 
Alexis Georgacopoulos
Bouée
MUDAC, Lausanne

 
Nicolas Le Moigne – Fontaine
Project for the INOUT exposition
MUDAC, Lausanne

Since the end of the 20^th century, Lausanne has been a city where design is king. From launch pads like the ECAL (Ecole Cantonale d’Art) and the MUDAC (Musée de Design et d’Arts Appliqués Contemporains), it has also become the most stylish international ambassador.

Silver medal

Although the design of objects marked by a concern for aesthetics and balance between form and function is a recent vocation in Lausanne, it is not happening on virgin ground. In French Switzerland it was previously known as “decorative arts”. There is no long and rich tradition there either, but a pleasing one in silver smithery. From the 18^th century to the middle of the 19^th century – its golden age before industrial competition dealt it a fatal blow – its purity of form and grace without decoration was in great demand.

Lausanne at the end of the line

The next chapter did not begin until the 1960s. It combines several factors. First the founding, in 1961, of the CITAM (Centre International de la Tapisserie Ancienne et Moderne), which organized the first of its sixteen biennial international tapestry festivals the very next year. Textile arts were then fully blossoming with experimentation. Lausanne became the site where the story of "new tapestry" was written. The Toms-Pauli collection holds a set of the major pieces. Then came the 1967 opening of Lausanne’s Musée des Arts Décoratifs (the future MUDAC), which by its commitment to active and innovative art – ceramics, graphic art, illustration, jewellery – became a reference and source of inspiration far and wide. And finally, 1969 saw the creation of the first section for industrial design in Switzerland in what was still called the Ecole Cantonale des Beaux-Arts et d’Art Appliqués (the future ECAL). Part of its first wave of graduates, the designers Antoine Cahen and Claude Frossard and the graphic artist Werner Jeker founded the Ateliers du Nord in 1983. Philippe Cahen joined up with them in 1988. With them, Lausanne design not only existed, but it also brought home prestigious international prizes. Coffee machines, watches, computer mice and metro trains, their creations all feature strict efficiency, formal purity and impeccable craftsmanship. They give the best of their reputation for aesthetic and technical excellence to Swiss design.

Inventive impertinence