Alice Rawsthorn visits Hella Jongerius’ innermost reality in the Times this weekend, and discovers that she, unlike so many other designers who seem to get inspired by wacky materials or weirdo technologies or new computer programs, takes things personally. In a profile centered around the Dutch designer’s upcoming show at Galerie Kreo (opening Saturday in Paris!), Rawsthorn gets into the emotional strings that make much of Jongerius’ work—whether over-fired ceramics (the B-Set for Royal Tichelaar Makkum) or that infamous Polder Sofa (for Vitra)—so successful. She also gets into Jongerius’ current realities, which, it turns out, is just a complete microcosm.

A vigorous 45-year-old with a rollicking laugh, Ms. Jongerius is one of the few women to have infiltrated the “boy’s club” of design. Having been brought up with three brothers, she said it feels “quite natural” for her to work in a male environment.

What’s great is that Jongerius has infiltrated (and she has). What’s not great is that it’s still a mostly-male environment. In the design and architecture world, there’s just no gender parity. Female architects like Annabelle Selldorf and Galia Solomonoff get mad and well-deserved props, but both of their best-known projects—the Urban Glass House for the former, Dia Beacon for the latter—are collaborations with dudes (even if one of them—our beloved PJ—was dead-at-time-of-work.) There’s still the sense that women have to work their way up through the male-dominated ranks, or latch on to a male partner (in life, or work, or both) to make it work. Marion Weiss would be fantastic on her own. So would Billie Tsien (who, incidentally, is giving a lecture called Women’s Work is Never Done, this Thursday at Cooper), and Amale Andraos, and Liz Diller. Let’s be clear that we’re in no way diminishing the contributions of Michael Manfredi or Tod Williams or Dan Wood or Ricardo Scofidio, but it’s worth noticing. If Jongerius hadn’t either a) infiltrated so successfully by virtue of having been used to being around boys or b) felt so natural in an all-male world, would we still have her?

A Designer Who Takes Things Personally [New York Times]
Image [E.R. Butler]