The Contribution of Recessions to Creativity

There are two schools of thinking in that area. One school says that okay, in design history that
while periods of very, very tough economic or social situation like if you take Finland, Northern
Europe, in the ‘30s, when Finland started to be an independent country and it was the same
period when it gave birth to the best of its design, the Alvar Aalto, just to quote one name, to
mention one name. Or even if you think to Italy right after the war, when Italy was all destroyed
and the phenomenon during the early ‘50s, this phenomenon of the Italian design factories
started operating. But on the other hand, there is the other school that says, the more we can
afford to experiment, also looking to the market, the more—the wider and healthier is the
market, the better it is for experiments— experimental activities.

We put more attention to the prices that is evident, self-evident. But this is the only modification.
For the rest, since I do not believe design is a luxury but design is a new form of art and poetry,
so people need art and poetry as well. They will need design. So I’m trying to continue to
develop the best possible design. I will, by sure, not decrease the effort to produce the best
possible design. That is sure.

I don’t see contradiction between having a design with a lot of integrity and also being accepted
by the market. An American designer, Raymond Loewy, in the ‘30s, was saying— was
practicing the strategy invented by him that was called the MAYA Strategy. Meaning most
advanced yet acceptable by the people. This is the factor—what makes a good design. To be able
to bring together the best possible quality in terms of expression in artistic terms, and that is a
cultural matter. And also, to be understood by final customers and that is a commercial matter.
The science of design is that we try to put these two apparently opposite facts of matters
together.