No more Captain Organic

Ross Lovegrove, taking design seriously.

Ross Lovegrove takes design very seriously indeed. Which is why he is no big fan of his ‘Captain Organic’ moniker.

“As if I’m going to come out of a telephone box wearing tights or something,” he laughed. “That’s fine; maybe it’s just a bit of fun. But it’s not serious enough – and I’m quite serious. I don’t want to turn design into some jolly little activity,” said the man famous for pioneering intelligent, organic, environmentally-sensitive design.

“Once you get a label on things, you can’t fight it off. Because it gets on the internet and spreads like a virus. So you end up becoming very cautious about what you say and how you move and how you stand. Because it all goes out there and is disseminated worldwide.”

The most cursory of Google searches reveals this to be true. Page upon page of Captain Organic references highlight the ease with which people label, categorise and pigeon-hole, without taking the time to understand the many complexities at work.

Because being pigeon-holed is completely at odds with Lovegrove’s predominantly artistic sensibilities. “People come to me and say, we want a ‘Ross Lovegrove’ bathroom. And I say, well, what is a ‘Ross Lovegrove’ bathroom? And then I have to find out what it is that they expect from me.

“Design is expected, art is unexpected. And I’m more interested in the unexpected. Not just delivering a service,” Lovegrove elaborated. “If I couldn’t maintain my own independence in terms of my own expression, I wouldn’t do this job.
I would give up,” he added.

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“The thing is, there is fashion and trend in design and, well, I don’t look to be a part of that. Most people can’t copy what I do because it’s quite sophisticated. That’s quite a self-protective idea. I work more as an artist, with support. So I’m looking for the sculptural presence of things.”

The relentless pace of Lovegrove’s creativity is highlighted in the breadth of projects he is currently working on: a perfume bottle for Calvin Klein, a yacht in Italy, a watch for Issey Miyake, lighting for Artemide and Yamagiwa, and so on. This is a man who has not taken a day off all year, and who travels to two or three different countries every week.

“I just want to keep my head down at the moment,” he explained. “I just want to keep doing what I do, and then see how the future unfolds. There’s a lot of irrelevance in the world which doesn’t turn me on – which I don’t crave to be a part of,” he added.

Lovegrove uses the contrasting styles of his living and working environments to highlight an inherent dichotomy in his life. A Start Trek-type working environment that is painfully modern and technologically advanced sits below a home that is brimming with wood, Henry Moore drawings and African art.

“It’s opposites. I exist on the basis of opposite forces. Not a lot of people know that – but when they only see you through the work that you do, they don’t understand the background noise.”

See the January 2010 issue of Commercial Interior Design for our full interview with Ross Lovegrove.

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