03/11/2022
PORTRAIT
Marc Berthier (1935-2022)
«"Putting high standards and intelligence at the service of the greatest number"»
Designer Marc Berthier has just died at the age of 87. He was internationally recognized as a champion of lightness and simplicity. «"I like things that are structured, things that work,", he said. However, it is not function that defines form, but harmony. I seek proportion, elegance, and allure. Everyone has a right to that.»
Born in 1935, Marc Berthier studied at the ENSAD (École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs), graduating in 1959. However, he was more interested in architecture than in objects. He completed an internship in Italy with the renowned architect and designer. Gio Ponti (1891-1979) revealed to him the richness of Italian design culture. On the other side of the Alps, designers and industrialists dared to take the risk of innovating, unlike in France where «"Talking to the bosses was appalling."».
In 1967, Marc Berthier was hired by Galeries Lafayette to challenge the prevailing conservatism. He immediately organized the exhibition "Domus, Italian Forms." A revelation: «The general public discovered a different way of living, a different aesthetic, a new inventiveness. It touched on everything: tableware, lighting… And little by little, I created an in-house design office at Galeries Lafayette, thanks to my wife, Marie-Laure, who headed the style department. The role of this department was very important, since it created ready-to-wear collections for the store. I tried to do the same work for the home, which was very well received by the general public. In a short time, contemporary furniture went from representing 5% of the offerings to customers to 50%.»
Under the influence of his wife, Marc Berthier embraced color. He started with children's furniture, then moved on to adult furniture, with a plastic coffee table. «"We offered it to furniture manufacturers, but these were techniques they weren't familiar with, approaches that seemed absurd to them. So I had it made by a shipyard that built small plastic boats."» Next up is a desk with clean lines, Ozoo, Made of fiberglass and molded polyester in a single piece, sold by Galeries Lafayette and then by Roche Bobois, which recently reissued it. Marc Berthier also designed a system of modular square storage units called Ruche., distributed by Dime store from 1968 onwards. More than one million modules will be manufactured.
In 1975, Marc Berthier won a competition for a demountable children's furniture design, which was installed two years later in the Centre Pompidou. Ten years later, the designer became a professor at ENSCI (École nationale supérieure de création industrielle), where he trained an entire generation, including Matali Crasset. The American magazine Time He is hailed as the creator of the year 2000.
