Jonathan Olivares (born 1981)[1] is an American industrial designer and author.[2] Olivares's approach to design has been characterized research-based and incremental.[3] In April 2022 he became Senior Vice-President of Design at the Knoll furniture company.[4][5][6]
Olivares' early furniture designs are explorations in various forms of metal. In 2007 Olivares designed Smith, a multi-purpose cart made of sheet metal,[15] made by Danese Milano.[16] Versatility, simplicity, and the use of a single, recyclable material deliver an environmentally friendly product.[17] The design is the result of balanced functions; a container, a side-table or seat surface, handles, wheels, and a geometry that allows stacking.[18] Writer and curator Su Wu states: "[Smith] has capacity instead of categories, in which a table could also be a seat, perhaps, if you chose to sit on it."[19] Olivares 2012 Aluminum Chair for Knoll[20] is a technically advanced chair made of die cast and extruded aluminum.[21] The chair's seat shell is 3mm thick and has a shape that softens its metallic nature.”[21] and its contoured shape is slim and comfortable.[22] The Aluminum Bench, made by Zahner in 2015, is made from architectural aluminum extrusions,[23] that are normally used to support curved metal building facades.[24] The extrusions provide the main structure, joining the seat plate and cast legs, and are rolled formed to any curvature.[25] In 2017 the Aluminum Bench was included in the Super Benches installation outside of Stockholm, curated by Felix Burrichter of Pin-Up Magazine.[26]
Olivares has worked on commercial and corporate interiors, for Vitra, Dropbox, and in 2019 he designed a retail store for the Mallorcan shoe brand Camper at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan.[27][28] The store furniture is milled from Indiana limestone, a nod to the building's iconic facade made of the same material,[29] and the stock is housed in openly in sliding storage racks.[30]
In 2016 Olivares turned his attention to textiles.[31]Twill Weave Daybed, commissioned from Olivares by the Harvard Graduate School of Design for 9 Ash Street, was realized in 2017 with the support of Kvadrat.[32] The daybed is composed of twill weave textiles,[31] with its legs and cross beams made of woven carbon fiber, molded on mast-making mandrels, and its wool cushion dyed the color of graphite.[12][7] The daybed is strong enough to support the weight of a car.[7] This combination of materials results in a design that is simultaneously visually homogenous and celebrates the different materials used to make it.[12] In 2022 Kvadrat's New York flagship showroom, designed by Olivares, opened.[33] Based on the square unit of a woven textile, the showroom is square in plan with a catwalk that allows bolts of textiles to be hung from it.[34] Square Chair, produced by the Italian manufacturer Moroso, was designed for the showroom and extends the spatial concept down to the scale of furniture.[35] The chair is made of two square foam blocks, upholstered with textile, that allow the user to sit forwards, sideways, and backwards.[36] With each block being upholstered in a different textile, the chair is a vehicle for larger compositions of color in space.[36]
Reception
Interior Design magazine describes Olivares work in a 2018 article as “spare and formally rigorous, often concerned with high-tech manufacturing processes.”[37] The art and cultural critic Drew Zeiba describes Olivares works as carrying a “signature elegance and simplicity.”[38] Writing in the International Herald Tribune about Olivares' book A Taxonomy of Office Chairs in 2011, Design critic Alice Rawsthorn writes: "You'll never look at an office chair in quite the same way again."[39]
