Michael Anastassiades

Interview with the designer and creator Michael Anastassiades by Eugenia Chandris and Stephanos Papadimitriou

Eugenia
Tell us a few things about you. Where you were born, where you grew up?

Michael
My mother is from Chios, my father is from Cyprus. I grew up in Africa, in Burundi and then my family moved to Cyprus. So, I spent all my teenage years in Cyprus, and I went to school there and did my military service. Then eventually came to London to study civil engineering at Imperial College. During my studies I also discovered that around the corner was this fabulous school, the Royal College of Art. I always wanted to do something creative. The engineering work was something that ticked the boxes with regards to what my parents wanted. The idea of an artist or somebody creative was too risky for them, and they didn’t really encourage me, but it was something that I wanted to do right from the start.

Eugenia
What year did you go to Imperial College?

Michael
1988. As there was no university at the time in Cyprus, everybody had to go abroad to study, so it made sense to come and study in London. After I graduated from Imperial College, I decided to apply to the Royal College of Art and that was it. Right after that, I set up my studio, quite early on. I was doing a lot of experimental work for the first years. I was also teaching design at Camberwell College for quite a few years and Ι was still continuing to develop my ideas in my own time, and this received a really good response. I participated in various incredible exhibitions, like in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Victoria and Albert Museum in London. I was producing more one-off pieces, more considered as statements in critical design, and then eventually I started to develop a passion for objects. I started questioning my role as an industrial designer.

From the mid 90’s to 2005 I was involved in different exhibitions at the same time travelling and working a lot in India with Studio Mumbai. A very good friend of mine, Bijoy Jain, was the architect behind Studio Mumbai. We worked together on a lot of architectural projects in India. At the same time, I kept exploring my ideas but also trying to get design brands interested in me, but the brands only worked with famous designers, who were established.

Eugenia
When you were doing the exhibitions, where you designing as an architect, or just designing objects?

Michael
It was a more complete project in the sense it was not only designing for isolated ideas for a group of objects. I did a lot of collaborations as well during that time with another design duo called Dunne & Raby. With Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby we did three big projects together which got a great response from the public and a lot of them got acquired by big institutions like the Victoria & Albert Museum, who commissioned a whole collection that we developed together.

At the same time, I was continuing to develop my own work and I managed to get acquired by different museums and institutions in their permanent collections. It was all fantastic, but I still wanted to design for industry. And then in 2007, I decided to set up my own brand to design and produce my own ideas with no compromises.

I started to produce mainly lighting objects for my own brand. Until a few years later I met the owner of Flos, he was intrigued by my work and invited me to partner with them. And I embarked on this prolific journey to develop all these ideas for Flos.

Eugenia
And this was in 2011.

Michael
2011, yes. When I start working with Flos, other companies followed. Not in lighting, because I had an exclusivity with them, but I got invited by Herman Miller and I started developing furniture with them, and many of them followed after that. I now work with an extensive group of companies, from Cassina, B&B Italia, Molteni, Bang & Olufsen. Not only in furniture and lightning but also in other products. I did a project a few years ago with Valextra, which is a leather goods brand. Now my studio is busy in all aspects of design, but at the same time my passion remains for lightning and also for my own brand, because that is still my ultimate platform for expressing my ideas freely.

Stephanos
What are the influences or inspirations for your work?

Michael
As a creative you just need to keep your eyes open and absorb and process information. This is really the best way to describe my creative process. There is never one way of getting ideas out. Sometimes it can be a spontaneous reaction towards something you see, sometimes it can be solving a problem, and then a lot of other times it is a much lengthier process and you have to come back to it again and again until something comes out on the other side. So, it is very diverse, it is not a formula. At time of course, like everybody else, you get stuck. You try to get out of it. Especially these days which we have started traveling again, and my schedule is incredibly hectic, then you have to draw inspiration sometimes in the most not so inspiring places, like airports and in planes, and you have to isolate yourself to be able to see things differently.

Eugenia
This beautiful paperweight we are including in A Magic Cabinet, is there a particular story behind that?

Michael
This one I did it is in fact a section of a leg of a marble table I designed. I did a bigger project with the brand Salvatori. I did a series of tables where the leg is shaped like a tear drop. The paperweight is practically just a cut, or a section of that leg.

Eugenia
Do you feel very emotionally attached to marble, being of Greek heritage?

Michael
Absolutely. I used to spend my summers in Greece, because of my mother. I’ve been to Chios various times; it is a beautiful island. My grandfather came from Smyrna, and then found himself in Chios. I do not think that you are able to separate or detach from this exposure to these images, or materials, or smells even, from the countries in which you spent so much time. I think there is so much beauty in the raw materials and also antique buildings which surround one in Greece.

Eugenia
It is that sense of being grounded, I think. One thing I said when I started A Magic Cabinet was that Greece has such an ancient soul, it has a long heritage, a long history going back to antiquity, that it makes you feel very centred as supposed to being in a younger country where that depth doesn’t exist.

Michael
Absolutely.

Eugenia
Thank you so much Michael. I look forward to visiting you in your studio the next time I am in London.