Design Reads: A Closer Look at Jasper Morrison’s Work

A Book of Things by Jasper Morrison
Zurich: Lars Müller Publishers, through Artbook D.A.P., $50
312 pages, 397 color illustrations

From his earliest productions—the 1984 Flower-Pot table and 1986 Thinking Man’s chair, both for Cappellini—Jasper Morrison has strived for work he defines as “super normal” (which also happens to be the title of a 2006 exhibition and 2007 book he did with Naoto Fukasawa), that is so understated and essential it disappears into daily life.

This latest edition by the British designer, who, since Cappellini, has gone on to design furnishings, homes, and housewares for Alessi, Emeco, Flos, and Muji, traces more than 160 of his projects through personal photographs, prototypes, diagrams, and Morrison’s candid commentary. His observations mix dry humor with precision. “Objects should make good atmosphere,” he writes, “without asking for attention.” Among those fitting that description is EVO-C, his spare, all-plastic seat for Vitra, its cantilever intended to go one step further than the Panton chair’s, and its sustainable production having an environmental impact equivalent to just an hour-long car ride. Another is the Zampa chair for Mattiazzi, pictured in a deconstructed sketch that reveals the clever joint design concealed within its timber and plywood construction.

Beyond furniture are household products like the Table clock for Hay, which distills function to a conical base that unscrews to access its mechanism. In a distinctly meta touch, A Book of Things contains a section of other books that previously compiled Morrison’s works.