A coffee with Jean Couvreur

Interview by Charlotte Imbault

Jean Couvreur is a designer and scenographer based in Paris. For Kann, he designed the entire Residence collection, which includes chairs, armchairs and tables. Over a coffee, he tells us how he thinks and designs the objects.

Can you tell us the history of the Residence chair?
The first Residence chairs were designed to equip the artists' studios at the Cité internationale des arts as part of a commission from the Ministry of Culture. I was guided by several parameters. On the one hand, the aesthetics of the place with a lot of furniture from the 60's and a very geometrical design of the space. And on the other hand, the demanding constraints of solidity so that the seat responds to the various practices of the artists who follow one another every three or six months. So I designed a very solid, robust structure, inspired by metal gantries like those found in the technical world of the show business, which I associated with deliberately thick cushions, offering a comfortable seat for working as well as eating... I chose a round shape for the cushions, because I like to think of objects in the round, to consider them as sculptures, so that the eye can more easily circulate around them, so that it is never stopped by an angle.

After having declined the Residence collection in high chairs and bridge chairs, how did you think of the design of the table of this same collection?
Originally, I had designed metal trestles, but when we decided with Kann to offer this furniture for hotels or restaurants, the tertiary sector and even the home, we started to add wood. The Residence tables are finished in walnut and do not deviate from the solidity of the object: we use the same sections of metal tubes for the legs. It is the details of the table that make the difference: the top is beveled, like an airplane wing, which gives the impression that the top is thinner. It has fillets at the corners, which prevents injury and makes the table less fragile. And like with the chair cushions, the eye can turn around. I also didn't want to make a totally round shape because these are tables that can be butted together. And when you line up several guests at the same table, it's interesting to have a sufficiently straight top that allows you to be at the same depth.

What attracts your eye as a designer?
Personally, I have an attraction to technical, industrial objects. Objects that have the beauty of their simplicity, be it a piece of hardware, a hinge, a clamp or a tool. Objects that are effective because they are useful. I'm interested in looking into these very ordinary objects. In design, to get a message across, you have to go to the source, to the essence of the objects. It's also a lot about the essence of materials, so raw materials. I work a lot in black and white. And what interests me in design is the contours of objects and the mass they can represent. I see the object as a whole, they appear to me as volumes and surfaces, paintings and then I go into detail.