2. Why did you take up design instead of art or architecture?

MSz: When I was a child, I wanted to be an architect or an artist. My parents often brought me to the offices of architects they were working with, and I soon sensed the difficulties of the profession. As for art, I was quick to move away from it: the result of pride and youth, of wanting to leave the family nest and go my own way. Art felt like a black hole of freedom, devoid of reference points. So, I took up design, still a creative practice yet grounded within the bounds of utilitarianism, ergonomics, cost effectiveness, technique and aesthetics… Also, particularly at the beginning, I derived great pleasure from a certain sense of unfettered independence designing and making the furniture myself. Apart from my adolescent years when I deliberately shunned art, the rest of my life has been constructed around contact with artists and artworks. Today, collectors add my furniture to their artworks, appropriating it for their daily use. On this subject, Pierre Staudenmeyer2 declared that “Furniture occupies a humble position in the field of art because of its relentless attachment to functionality, yet it is for that very reason it has a force that works of art cannot possess.”

3. What influence did Kwok Hoï Chan have on your thinking and your work as a designer?

MSz: Chan taught me the rudiments of design: the range of people who make it happen, but also the importance and interdependent play of voids and solids in objects.