10MINUTESWITH...
Torsten Valeur
By Farhan Shah
Head of David
Lewis Designers
Heading perhaps one of the most wellknown design firms in the world (psst, they
design your Bang & Olufsen products),
Torsten Valeur was in town recently. We
sit down with the man and asked him
about Singapore’s design identity, advice
that he would give to our country’s young
designers, and why it’s occasionally
better to be chaotic.
There were no design influences at all in my family
background, believe it or not! But, we always explored
different ways of presenting the furniture in our home
and I would like to think that shaped my thoughts.
My mother would tell my father that we should
move the door perhaps five centimetres to the
right. My father would say okay and demolish the
door and wall just to accomplish that.
Through this, I learned that nothing is ever settled
and there are always new ways to present something
old. Of course, at the same time, being a Danish
kid meant playing all day with LEGO bricks! That really helped to shape my belief of making
something new from old parts.
I did flirt with becoming an engineer but I thought the whole process was too
structured and I wanted to work more intuitively, hence why I went to architecture
school instead.
Let me tell you something. After I graduated from architecture school, I actually took
up a job making fireworks! I rolled tubes and put gunpowder into those tubes. About a
year later, one of my friends asked me, “Wait Torsten, you’re a designer. What are you
doing there?” He was right, of course!
So, I decided to give the man himself David Lewis a call and asked him for an
interview. He actually said yes! I remember walking into his studio and realising
how messy it was; it was not the sleek place that I actually imagined it to be.
Lewis called me three months after the interview and asked me whether I still wanted
the designer job. I said yes and when I went in, he showed me to my table and said:
“Here’s your table. Here’s some glue and cardboard. Now, make me a phone.”
Advice for young Singaporean designers? To be honest, I don’t think I am
capable of giving any. I’ve never had a plan about where to go or a career
ambition of sorts. All I had was a strong, unshakeable habit of focusing on
what I was doing right at the moment and giving it my best efforts.
Perhaps one piece of advice and that is to be critical of your creation. Keep asking
yourself: “Why? Why have I done this? What purpose does this serve?” Then, after
you have created a design solution, you ask yourself: “Why not this way or that way?”
It’s all about being loose and focused at the same time.
Oh, and always get other people to look at your designs!
In a way, Singapore is up there, architecturally-wise. It’s incredibly clean and I really
like how the buildings around here have a lot of playful and joyful elements. Most
importantly though, in architecture, you need to understand how the people’s lives
relate to the space that they are living in, and Singapore’s cosmopolitan nature and
vibrant environment is definitely something to admire.
I suppose that’s how Scandinavia’s iconic minimalist design identity came about.
In Scandinavia, we spend a lot of time indoors, so we pay a lot of attention to how the
light influences our surroundings.
Also, if you go back 50 or 60 years, there was this social movement to introduce great design into
everyone’s lives, and not just restrict it to a select few. There was a mantra of making good furniture for
everyone, which resulted in my generation growing up with quality products all around us.
Singapore is already sort of on her way to forging her own design identity but I believe that the most
important quality – self-confidence – is missing. If every Singaporean questions what they like and then
carries what they like, then you’ll have your own style.
Of course, forging your own design identity is more difficult today with the advent of the Internet. Today,
design is more global