Johan Brunel

Johan Brunel
Period: 2015-2016
Profession: Designer Johan Brunel was born in 1977. A graduate of the Atelier Métal at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Appliqués et des Métiers d’Art and the École Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle, he has worked as an agency designer in Israel, as a set designer at the Centre Pompidou, and as a design teacher at the École Supérieure d’Art et de Design de Reims. In 2004, he founded l’atelier [jes] with Samuel Misslen. As part of this collective, he created interactive systems for the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris and the Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace in Le Bourget, places for which he sought to invent new forms of visit. As a designer and builder, he creates one-off pieces and installations for individuals and galleries. In a collective self-production approach, he designs domestic objects:
Usinage & sentiments , a range of furniture produced in his workshop, or
Hand in Hand , a collection of bamboo objects created in dialogue with craftsmen in Taiwan. In 2014, he won the Prix Émile Hermès for
La Capsule Ventilée , a bioclimatic relaxation refuge for hot climates. At Villa Medici, Johan Brunel will focus on the issue of water in Rome. Entitled
La Rencontre – the encounter between north and south, between the cultures of the Finnish sauna and ancient thermal baths – his project will consider a contemporary relationship with water, in a global context of increasing scarcity. Water, the Roman heritage of engineering and the art of living, is also the heritage – deemed inalienable – of mankind. He will approach this resource as both a material and an issue, which can just as easily spark off wars as bring people together. It is the unifying role and living potential of water, as a vector of culture(s), social sharing and shared imagination, that will inspire the designer to create new projects.