MOROCCO IS ACCELERATING! feature - Alstom
MOROCCO IS ACCELERATING! feature - Alstom
MOROCCO IS ACCELERATING! feature - Alstom
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
train and plane brands to come together<br />
in a vast conglomerate. They could then agree<br />
on a self-managed international standard,<br />
like for instance automatic piloting.<br />
Who can say whether one day <strong>Alstom</strong><br />
will not form a partnership with Boeing?<br />
Companies need each other. In the future,<br />
at some point, everyone will combine.<br />
We can imagine that there will be no more<br />
rails, no more roads, no planes, but only<br />
weightlessness, energy, electromagnets<br />
and green jets … The real invention will be<br />
in the way in which this is expressed.<br />
X. Allard: Toyota is currently designing<br />
cars that can park themselves.<br />
Rail operators are working on intermodality<br />
and studying the more individualised<br />
approach that you are describing.<br />
Ora Ïto: Yes that’s true. But I think<br />
that mobility is continuing to regress. Take<br />
for example the Concorde which, in the 1980s,<br />
allowed my father to get to New York in three<br />
hours. Today, it takes eight. Progress is not<br />
a matter of ‘raw’ performance it now includes<br />
sustainable development. Because today,<br />
the most important thing is not to go ever<br />
faster and further, it’s simply to save the planet!<br />
X. Allard: What do you think about<br />
sustainable development?<br />
Ora Ïto: There is already a general<br />
growing awareness of the need to sacrifi ce<br />
a little individual freedom. The challenge<br />
of sustainable development will now<br />
be to reconcile individual pleasure and<br />
the common good.<br />
Design is accompanying this movement<br />
towards the sustainable. Materials will<br />
become more and more sophisticated,<br />
and more solid. Glass or any other ‘invisible’<br />
material will soon have the same structural<br />
properties as metal. This gets us back<br />
to my concept of ‘simplexity’: each object<br />
is just an additional step towards the ultimate<br />
phase where there will be nothing any longer.<br />
In a few centuries time, <strong>Alstom</strong> will be<br />
in the teleportation business!<br />
X. Allard: What will remain<br />
then as the expression of the brand?<br />
Ora Ïto: History will remember that<br />
it was <strong>Alstom</strong> who invented it!<br />
Interview by<br />
Carole Galland<br />
Biography<br />
1977: Birth.<br />
1996: Invents the fi rst virtual brands.<br />
His site becomes the second digital<br />
work acquired by the Fonds national<br />
d’art contemporain (FNAC).<br />
2000: Ora Ïto works on designing real<br />
products, developing transversal<br />
design, architecture and communication<br />
projects, in all sectors of activity.<br />
2002: Oscar for the best design<br />
for his Heineken bottle in aluminium<br />
and its original packaging capsule.<br />
2004: His fi rst lamp, One Line,<br />
designed in a continuous long line is<br />
celebrated at the Milan Furniture Fair<br />
and awarded a Red Dot Design.<br />
2005: The Centre européen d’art<br />
contemporain offers him<br />
the opportunity to hold his fi rst major<br />
monographic exhibition at the Centre<br />
culturel français de Milan, which<br />
he ironically calls ‘Museora-Ïto’.<br />
Customers: Adidas, the Air Group,<br />
Thierry Mugler, Toyota, Biotherm,<br />
Levi’s, Davidoff, Nike, Danone, Kenzo,<br />
LG electronics, Guerlain, Ballantine’s,<br />
L’Oréal, Sagem, Habitat, Christofl e…<br />
51