How do you find the first year since starting UP Zavody?
The beginnings of such a company couldn’t possibly avoid any “labour pains”. The company returned after decades to a market which is experiencing the time of the big crisis. The industry was bankrupt. However, our first year met with the great success and we’re currently working on a system of assortment and sale.
Does UP Zavody have a certain limit for its creative artists or can any designer join in?
UP Zavody has no limit for the amount of its designers. Any excellent artist can design for the company with new arrivals including works by Ladislav Žák and Eva Eislerová.
The new, or rather new-old brand aims to produce high quality interesting items that in someway echo the pre-war tradition when products were wide-spread and exported oversees. Do you think there is a chance for the products to take hold even nowadays, in these times of such cheap production? Will UP Zavody become another design company manufacturing custom-made products only for wealthy clientele?
Even in the old days UP Zavody manufactured mainly for wealthy middle and upper class customers. We don’t intend to be a substitute for Ikea providing for the masses who cannot afford better quality furniture. Their products are such a bargain because the detail doesn’t matter and they can be folded. So the armchairs maybe made of leather but if you focus on the detail of the stretcher you will realise there’s something not quite right. Regarding Ikea, the price is more important than the aesthetic impression. We would like to attempt the opposite in our future designs. Despite this fact, I highly respect Ikea. It is a company which provided design to the masses. Ikea created a world revolution in the manufacture and distribution of interior design, albeit at the expense of copying other labels.
How limiting is the manufacturing technology for a designer?
A proper designer goes through the manufacturing process and comes up with the shape. Technology provides the opportunity to experiment more. In my opinion the most important part is the technical aspect. Only excellent craftsmen can make excellent products.
Do you think the style and a sense of beauty of the current population is changing? Do you notice the change among the older generation? Are young people more likely to buy an interesting design?
The ascetics of style have been deformed by current lifestyles. Design is connected to intelligence. It is up to each one of us which path to choose. Today’s individual is affected by many impulses and sometimes becomes confused by the overload of advertisements prompting us to buy the best quality products for very low prices. You need to realise the consequence of your actions, whom or what do you support. Buying is a way of thinking. You can influence many things by your actions including facilitation or devastation of your country’s identity.
How should an interesting interior design look like nowadays? What should or should not be included?
Considering the evolution of the human race, it seems that we will remain sitting on chairs and lying in beds for some hundreds of years or so more.
How do you find the inclination of a mainly younger generation toward eco-products, alternative materials and so on?
Even the purchase of a product manufactured in our country is an ecological action. You don’t participate in the devastation of environment caused by production and import of the goods from China for instance.
You allegedly work with more traditional material such as ceramics. Would you like to engage in using different materials in the future?
I work with all kinds of materials.
What is your plan for the year 2009?
I’m working on a collection for Qubus Studio and a couple of projects that are kept secret.
photo: Oskar Exner
