A lot to learn

Do you think design, that is the ideation, planning and development of objects aimed at satisfying our everyday requirements, is an activity that helps to better comprehend the relationship between rationality and creativity?

Not really, because both terms, be it “industry” or “creativity”, are somewhat fuzzy; I’ve never really managed to grasp their meaning because they keep on slipping one into the other. Clearly a rationalist can be creative and someone creative can be rational. A surgeon, for instance, can be highly creative and at the same time a rational, because healing and caring go very much hand in hand.

So, do you think no clear-cut distinction can be made between mind and emotions to try and better understand in what way they may be related?

Mind simply can’t exist without there being any emotion, be it love or hate. I honestly believe that emotions play an essential role in determining overall mental make-up. Einstein, for instance, used to get excited by his own ideas; I reckon that’s why he wasn’t able to sleep at night.

I think it would be better to speak of “curiosity”; it’s really thanks to our sense of curiosity that certain things occur that wouldn’t otherwise happen. Not that the concept is all that clear to me though. After all, being curious is so much tied in with life itself. They’re questions that can’t really lead to much of an answer.

What gave you the courage to make certain decisions, such as that of collaborating free-lance with olivetti? Was it because of your curiosity?

Roberto Olivetti was a dear friend and when he asked me to work for his company I was well aware that this would have meant a very good salary and hence long-term security. But I told him straight out that I wasn’t interested in having a high executive appointment in the company. The fact is I wanted to be free to move around, to let myself be guided by my curiosity. In a way I suppose I didn’t want to get caught up in the workings of industry as such. He sympathized with me and we agreed that I would continue working from my studio, choosing my collaborators and having Olivetti foot the bill. Yes, I wanted to steer clear of any constrictive system that wouldn’t have allowed me to cultivate my curiosity.

Do you think the relationship between reason and emotions changes over the years and as one gains experience? has it changed, for instance, in the course of your own lifetime?

I really don’t know what to say; twenty years ago I would have tried to answer such questions, but now I know that clear-cut answers on such matters are not tenable and even less viable. Such issues simply eschew definition. Everyone seeks to understand what creativity is exactly, to come to terms with feelings and emotions. After all, they constitute the most secretive part of life.. Indeed they are life itself. You are not creative simply because you choose to be. Even a child who wakes up one morning and deliberately breaks a glass might be considered as having performed a creative act. Defining creativity, saying where it begins and ends, is quite impossible.

So, what you’re saying is that we’re dealing with something that’s essentially indivisible and undecipherable and that we simply break it up conventionally into so many parts for the sake of making it more intelligible, is that it?

Life’s fleeting and slippery in all its parts and that is indeed what defines life. There’s really no way of getting to the bottom of why things happen, they just happen.

During another interview five years ago I remember you telling me that today’s youth have an especially strong and unflagging curiosity, but in the form of an almost carnal craving, an irrational urge to always seek out new experiences. Would you still endorse such a statement or have there been changes in the latest generation on this score?

To be honest I’m not all that familiar with younger generations. What I can say though is that my young assistants who help me in my work don’t exhibit any cultural or intellectual curiosity. I’ve never really managed to talk with them to understand what they want.

In your experience, do you think the senses have a role to play in enhancing sensibility?

From the start I’ve always believed that senses come before cognition in coming to terms with reality. Just think of children: they’re always touching, licking, smelling at an age when we know nothing but we strive to understand something about the world by coming into direct contact with it.

Even if you understand that trying to describe the sense-sensibility relationship is a futile effort, is there anything else the combination of the two concepts in the adverb “senti/mentally” suggests to you?

I think the role ambition plays needs to be considered. Being ambitious means having a fairly clear idea of oneself, of one’s future, of one’s past, of what one wants and is striving for. Americans refer to this aspect in fairly strong and aggressive terms. To them it’s very much an all-or-nothing affair, a question of success or failure. In the American view, the individual either makes it to the top or is considered a drop out. I never heard my father, who was an excellent architect, talk of success.

Whenever he had a commission he would come home and happily tell us about his new job.. To be over-concerned with self-achievement means triggering psychological needs clamouring for satisfaction that in turn prompt a ferociously competitive behaviour towards other individuals, and indeed a good deal of aggressiveness towards the world at large, so that one ends up tending to use others and natural resources for self-gratification.

Life to me is full of surprises. For instance, there’s an exhibition currently running in London dedicated to my work where everyone’s praising me.

I’m of course very happy about all this, but at the same time this event conveys an image of me that I never even remotely suspected existed, because I’ve never sought any form of personal success. Quite honestly I’m practically unaware of what I’ve achieved and presumably continue to achieve. I’ve always been very curious, travelled and read a lot, and I’ve been extremely lucky in meeting and talking with very intense people such as Hemingway and Ginsberg.

I think what’s important to bear in mind, in this dialogue between sense and sensibility, is the need for mutual respect,  the need to know how to listen…

I think so, too. For instance, I went to India because I’d vaguely heard talk of these Indian temples and because I’d read a book written by an Indian dealing with abandoned temples and gods amidst forests. I wanted to learn and understand more about them, precisely because I’m essentially curious and I want to go out there and bring back home with me the fruits of my curiosity. That’s why I take pictures, to bring back home with me what I go out to see.

One of my assistants at the Olivetti studio once asked my permission to take a break as she wanted to go and visit Turkey, and I naturally said yes. When she returned a fortnight later I asked her what she thought of the place. She said she’d really enjoyed Turkey because she’d been to hotels with fabulous swimming pools. When she’d finished talking I showed her the door and asked her to leave. Someone who goes to Turkey and comes back having noticed nothing other than how fabulous the hotels were is not the kind of person who can work with me. Actually, I subsequently found out that this young collaborator was truly fired by curiosity, so you see how hard it is to judge.

You see, power-mongers are generally ignorant individuals because they’ve been too busy doing other things than simply stopping to look, listen and think.

Our society seems to shun any overt expression of grief, such as weeping. And yet the urge to let ourselves go and display our sorrow and suffering may at times be emblematic of our inner conflicts involving the reason-feelings dichotomy…

I often find myself weeping, gripped by a sense of compassion; when I hear the first notes of some musical score by Mozart or Bach this feeling wells up inside me, a sort of sense of pity for the wretched lot of these men. It’s as if their works and music had survived to remind us of their inspired inquisitiveness and loneliness and despair.

Why haven’t you ever considered teaching, in the sense of “officially” conveying, so to speak, this personal point of view of yours?

Because I don’t have anything to teach. Anyone who’s genuinely curious doesn’t have anything to teach but only a lot to learn. No, I’ve never felt the urge to teach. The fact is I don’t believe anyone can learn much unless driven by a personal urge to find out more about something or in the sort of way that was common in Renaissance workshops. The young apprentice, usually a child, wasn’t told how to make the colour blue but was simply given several pieces of lapis-lazuli to pound and grind down to a fine powder for a couple of years or so. Time, friendship or personal animosity were then the main ingredients that went into teaching and learning. The process was somewhat arcane in that sort of context.

What’s more, I find it difficult to believe that ideas are word-transmissible, given the ambiguity of the medium. Defining creativity, that is the sensibility-side of human nature, is no easy task and teaching it is even harder, because there’s no explanation that can truly hold.