“The key word in my work is elementarity. I look more for peculiarities and characteristics that are tied to simple functions. I’m particularly fond of tables, because a table is a simple thing, but being simple doesn’t mean it’s any easier to make…

Here there is ‘the table by the kilometre’, which Roset didn’t put into production, but it’s one of the latest models and will be out soon [vrai ou pas]… I love anything that revolves around the notion of character or around a simplicity that has nothing to do with brutalism or minimalism–it’s tied to the materials, to the fact of doing a job. The crucial thing is to translate a certain spirit, the spirit of the technologies and attitudes of the moment.

The ‘Simple Bridges’ armchair, which is reissued here, was also one of the first armchairs in a series called ‘Elémentaires’. This one goes back to the very beginning: it’s a sort of bridge, extremely simple, on the scale of a restaurant chair, or a conference seat, or a little living room lounge chair. I’ve often been driven to design furniture because I was embarrassed at having to fit my buildings out with seating that was 20 or 30 years old and that had associations with other places, other cultures, other techniques. To me it only seems natural that once you create the places, you fill them with furniture that corresponds in time and spirit, and that’s what led me to redesign furniture and so avoid having ‘built-in anachronisms’.

There is one more model here from the latest range, the ‘Simplissimo’, and a few prototypes that are exactly in this tradition: they are ‘almost nothings’. I really love the ‘je ne sais quoi’ and the almost nothing, in homage to Jankélévitch. It’s a way of revitalising simple techniques that used to be used in very straightforward furniture, like gym furniture made of fabric or imitation leather stretched over a simple metal plate. Here there is a small armchair, a small table, two or three units, a small sofa, and we will definitely look into doing a chair–always using the same techniques, it will always be monochrome, but in a few different colours.

The new line heralds the spirit of a range that aims at being installed in a lot of different locations. It’s a simple thing that corresponds to a real demand; generally, when I do something, it’s because I feel the need, because I couldn’t find it anywhere, or just the opposite– I found it everywhere I looked; or it was too complicated, or too aggressive but not profound enough at the same time.” Jean Nouvel