Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby have become the first British designers to headline a retrospective exhibition at the Milan Triennale. In an exclusive interview, the duo reflects on their 30-year journey from ‘dunces’ to pioneers.
The Alphabet exhibition, part of Milan Design Week, features more than 230 objects and prototypes tracing Barber-Osgerby Studio’s evolution over 40 years, including icons such as the Tipton Chair, the Bell Hop Lamp and the London 2012 Olympic Torch.
The two designers have been collaborating since the early 1990s, meeting while studying architecture at London’s Royal College of Art and landing their first commission before graduating.
Although the two are now based in different cities, Osgerby in London and Barber in Milan, they still collaborate on all projects.
“We have never worked independently,” Barber told Dezeen. “There’s nothing on this show that just one of us was involved in.”
Mr. Osgerby said they shared an “Anglo-Saxon pragmatism,” but Mr. Barber said he thought they kept each other’s more maniacal tendencies in check.
“We don’t agree on everything,” he said. “That’s a good thing because you end up with a more streamlined and sensible design. But maybe you get rid of the craziness that could happen if either of you did it.”
Mr. Dezeen met with Mr. Osgerby in London a week before the opening, and spoke with Mr. Barber a day later. Both men spoke of their continued ambition to “find new archetypes.” “Finding new archetypes” means objects that make people think and act in new ways.
“We don’t want people to think we’re just making nice shapes and nice colors,” Barber says. “There’s a lot of thought behind each of our projects.”
“When we work on a project, we often work with the idea that if you can’t get up and talk for 20 minutes, it doesn’t justify its existence,” Osgerby said.
The alphabet is organized chronologically, illustrating a clear progression of important expertise. Many of the early pieces were made from bent plywood in collaboration with Isokon Plus, but experience with metal casting and plastic molding was added later.
Italy played a key role in this growth, as curator Marco Samichelli highlights in the program. Many of the studio’s most famous designs have come from partnerships with Italian manufacturers such as Cappellini, Flos, and B&B Italia.
“Like most people who have achieved success in Italy, we would like to thank Giulio Cappellini,” Osgerby said. “He was responsible, along with the Bouroullecs and Marc Newson, for finding the underdogs of our generation.”
Both look back fondly on a time when they felt the design industry was more open to taking risks. As an example, Barber points to the stencil screen he collaborated with Cappellini on in 2002 and reinvented for this exhibition.
“I showed it to Julio and he was hooked,” Barber recalled. “I asked him if we were going to sell anything. He said absolutely not! But he said it didn’t matter.”
“He was right,” he continued. “The great thing about design is that it doesn’t have to be commercial. It can just be thinking, just as art is thinking.”
Osgerby points to the Tip Tong Chair as another success story born from risk-taking. Manufactured by Vitra, it allows the sitter to lean forward into a more active sitting position.
“For a monoblock chair, it was really complicated to make, and neither we nor Rolf would have made one. [Fehlbaum, then-CEO of Vitra] “I had no idea if it would sell or not,” he said.
“So finding a new way to sit for the company that is the chair company… was definitely a success.”
The show includes a recreation of Barber Osgerby’s London studio, packed with mock-ups and models of both realized and unrealized designs.
Like the work, the studio has undergone distinct changes over the past 30 years. In 2001, interior-led Universal Design Studio was added, followed by creative consulting firm Map in 2012, before both companies were acquired by AKQA in 2018.
“Around 2014, we had about 5,000 square feet of studio space with architects, interior designers, industrial designers, filmmakers, and a whole management and marketing team,” Osgerby recalls. “It was so much fun because all the design barriers completely evaporated.”
“For a long time, we were the youngest in the studio,” Barber said. “We hired people who were already doing things that were much more complex than we were, so they helped us understand.”
Designers say the studio remains just as supportive. Technologies like 3D printing have changed the way we work, but our enthusiasm for exploring new ideas hasn’t diminished.
“Companies that work with us say the best thing about us is that we’re open,” Osgerby said.
“We are not prima donnas. We want to find the best solution for everyone.”
In addition to Alphabet, Barber Osgerby will present products with seven different brands during Milan Design Week. These include new partnerships with Kettal and Kartell.
Osgerby said he doesn’t plan to spend the week exploring what else is new. He prefers to find inspiration elsewhere rather than looking too closely at what other designers are doing.
“When I visit a city, I go to flea markets, not design stores,” he said. “Our job as designers is to absorb history and the future, not the present moment.”
Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby portrait photography by Mark Cocksedge.
The alphabet will be on display at the Milan Triennale from April 18th to September 6th. For your exclusive guide to Milan Design Week, check out our Dezeen event guide.
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