Being open to the unexpected allows me to bring so much to my craft.
I listen to a variety of music. I like everything from old Arabic music to Portuguese fados.
Why would you spend your life and your time doing something that's insignificant?
Nobody's interested in something that could've been done before.
The things I own are sacred.
I don't just want to create products. I want to reach into people's hearts and minds. I want to create memories.
I can't be boring. If people like my designs, then meet me and find out that I'm boring, they won't want my stuff.
If something is functional, you no longer think about it. I care about how meaningful things are.
We should make things that people don't want to throw away.
There is always a reason behind things that are made, and if there isn't, there will be one when they travel through the world. The objects of beauty are used to impress, seduce, overwhelm, make money, support identities, and show power or style, among other things.
I think design is the expression of its time and culture.
I want to create a world with objects and surroundings that are human, more romantic, and less sterile.
As humans, we are not so rationalist as we think we are. I think our biggest quality is indeed that we are human, truly human: if our biggest quality would be rationality, we would lose our soul.
My parents weren't cultured people.
For me, true kitsch has nothing to do with irony. It's very honest. It represents what people like, their dreams.
I have a long list of how people call me: 'The Prince of Design,' 'Beethoven of Design,' 'the Dutch Prince of Design' and the list goes on and on and on... and also the 'Lady Gaga of Design!' I am fine with it. I think she is an amazing character who has innovated the music scene and is respected by so many people; she is surprising.
The fundamental dogma of Modernism - that, if the past is irrelevant to the future, then today is irrelevant to tomorrow - has created a throwaway society of disposable objects. That is sick.
San Francisco is a lot like Amsterdam - free, open-minded and casual - though I expected better weather.
When I make chairs, they have legs; they can go anywhere in the world. Interiors are a different responsibility. A house is a representation of where you are, and it has to be right for the place.
The need to express yourself in Los Angeles makes the city so vibrant. If I lived here, it would be lovely to be in a cool new high-rise looking out over a city that is exploding.
