Erwan Bouroullec

Background

Erwan Bouroullec was born in 1976 in Quimper, Brittany, and attended the art school in Cergy. His brother Ronan (born 1971) trained in Paris at the école supérieure des Arts décoratifs, and the two began working together in the late 1990s. Their studio is based in Paris.

Signature Style

The brothers work in a permanent dialogue, driven by a shared wish for more balance and finesse. Their output spans small objects such as jewellery, spatial arrangements and architecture, craft and industrial scale, drawings, videos and photographs. Research carried out with the Galerie kreo runs alongside their commissions for manufacturers.

Notable Works

• Spring armchair, one of the first industrial design projects for Cappellini, alongside the Lit clos.
• Joyn office system for Vitra (2002), followed by Worknest, Vegetal and Slow Chair.
• Steelwood for Magis, awarded the Compasso d'Oro in 2011.
• Lustre Gabriel, a 2013 chandelier for the Gabriel staircase at Versailles.

Legacy

Their designs belong to the permanent collections of MoMA, the Centre Pompidou, the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, the Design Museum in London and the Art Institute of Chicago. The brothers were named Honorary Royal Designers for Industry in 2015 and Wallpaper* Designer of the Year in 2016.