The deign of Johannes Torpe - Torpe studio

1. If it feels like work,
you are doing it wrong
Johannes Torpe interviewed by Damiano Fossati
Danish by birth and world citizen by adoption, Johannes Torpe is a volcano of
ideas. Creative and cheerful, he leaves much to improvisation and good taste.
His nightclubs and restaurants are an immediate success and thanks to a
fruitful series of collaborations with food and furniture industry business
patrons he has recently opened a new Beijing studio in the heart of the
Chinese dragon.
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4. His work ranges from interior to furniture design, with many of
his most recent projects in China. Now one of the most popular contem-
porary Scandinavian designers, he grew up between the constraints of a
small hippie community on the border of Germany and Denmark and
began his career with the brilliant design in 1997 of NASA, which he
also owns, at the same time as launching a fruitful collaboration in the
music business with his half-brother Rune, aka Rune Rk with hits such
as Calabria. A mix of music and design that is going to leave its mark.
Damiano Fossati: How did you start your own business?
Johannes Torpe: First of all, my half-brother and I, we founded this
company together. My mother was an artist, painter and sculptor and my
father was a musician. It’s really the kind of background that led our busi-
nesses to music and design. We grew up in very artistic environment.
My mother comes from a very intellectual family. Following a rebel-
lious path she met an Irish guitar player; she was 33 and he was 22. She
got pregnant and she decided to raise me on her own. I grew up with my
mum in Christiania in Copenhagen, and to make things even worse we
moved away to a rural part of Denmark.
When I was 13 years old I started to work in a drum shop in
Copenhagen. If it was snowing I was sculpting in snow, and in the sum-
mer I was sculpting with sand or clay: all my life has been about creating
things with what you have or from nothing, and there has always been
something fascinating about that. I started to play drums with a lot of
bands around Denmark and work as lighting designer with my half-
brother, at festivals and theatres. When I was 20 I sold the business which
was then considered as one of the top 3 light-design companies.
DF: And how did you shift to furniture and interior design business?
JT: After selling, I bought 25 % of a nightclub empire. I took over the
concept design management and I created NASA, while I was actually
the owner. That was a huge success. So today we are located with an office
in Padua but our mother company is in Hong Kong and Copenhagen. For
the music business we are in New York and our new Asian company is a
joint venture based in Beijing together with Wang Xiaofei from South
Beauty Group. So our values are: do something from nothing and if it
feels like work you are doing it wrong. Use intuition.
DF: New Scandinavian generations... is there a mainstream, a production
fil rouge or a common master?
JT: For me the last Scandinavian master of the 1970s was Verner
Panton, really experimental with music, acid and playing with light to
make his brain more colourful. The Danish and Finnish mentality is
‘Less is more’, but to my mind it doesn’t work that way. I do believe it’s
a question of balance in design. So the more power of imagination you
give to the people that work with you, the more power and freedom
you get as well.
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5. DF: What is your ‘motto’ and why do you define yourself as ‘the bastard
child’ of the company?
JT: The design environment is very much dominated by academics and
there is a lot of snobbish behaviour toward design. A good example of
this: we work with a manufacturer called HAY and we did a very suc-
cessful project together but in the beginning they were really sceptical
and expected that every meeting would start late and every piece of
work would be on a serviette or toilet paper because we seemed really
happy, relaxed and playful. After a while we distinguished ourselves
with perfect timing and a highly professional approach. So this ‘bastard
love child’ means people expect we are really fucked-up but in reality
we are very controlled.
DF: You work with both design and music...
JT: My brother has a leading role in our work and is a continuous source
of inspiration. He is the Creative Director and I’m the Art Director.
We have 3 labels in the music business. Nightology Records is mainly
hip-hop and Dj-based music and we have signed a lot of artists. We had
a number one American hit with Calabria and we have been working
with Lady Gaga on the Canadian tour until we went out with something
called Artificial Funk which was touring in small clubs and was devoted
to doing live music. I believe we are still moving in the right direction
with the Asian tour this year. So it is really complicated to run a business
with both music and design: this kind of creative stuff is making our
company really vibrant.
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6. DF: How did you take your first step in China and how do you suppose
the great rise of China will support your practice?
JT: We are doing 4 restaurants at this moment: the smallest one is 2,000
m2
and the biggest is 5,000 m2
. We design all furniture, graphics and
communication. We have also a huge project in Sanya covering 100
acres. With a big client in China we are doing a new series of bathtubs
and sinks made from a single piece of Onyx and we are also signing a
contract with them to be the art director so we are going to be their
communication face to the rest of the world. This year they are going
to open 10 showrooms in the big cities around China. We have a big
clothing company that plans to open 10 stores this year and 20 the year
after with a complete line of products. Shanghai M Macalline Group
has 67 warehouses now and in one year they are going to have 90. The
exciting thing is that we are discussing to be the face for a competition
with a first prize of one million RMB for the best furniture piece and if I
can negotiate the right way and become the ambassador of that, it can be
a very important step to becoming a Chinese ‘iconic brand’ and for me to
teach young designers about creativity. And we are getting commissions
in Singapore, Taipei and London too. I couldn’t be happier.
DF: How do you feel about the different background between Asian
culture and Nordic countries?
JT: When I meet a new client I base it on chemistry: If I feel that the
people I have to work with are somehow flaky, then I choose not to
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7. work with them since you might not be rich in money but you are rich
in your mentality …
DF: Is there any project you would like to work on that you haven’t yet
had the opportunity to do so?
JT: I think is all about people and everything has its time. The only way
you can learn that, is just becoming older and shifting between different
environments. It is just difficult to be based in one place and you cannot
force something to happen: even if you force it through, it will become
nothing because you are not ready for it. You should be ready mentally
and relationship-wise to do a great project before you can do it, and then
you can give people what they expect and be satisfied yourself. That is
the ultimate goal of success.
DF: Do you consider yourself an innovator?
JT: I actually hate the term innovation because it’s such a fuck-up
word.
Every company has this ‘innovation is in our values list and we must
be competitive and so on’ but in reality I believe it is pretty basic: If you
stop developing, you stop innovating, and if you stop innovating, you
stop developing. You just keep standing on the same level and nothing
happens and that is easier to do as a designer than to do as a company,
because a company has to create value and a designer has to do com-
modities or you will not move anywhere and just remain standing there
in the same place, so ‘hell fucking yeah, lets be innovative’. n
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