In Conversation with Hannes Peer

Hannes Peer (HP): I studied architecture at the Politecnico Milano and then at the Technical University in Berlin which was a bit of a milestone for me. It opened my eyes and my heart to architecture in terms of material. At the same time, I don’t know where I got the energy from, I was doing an internship with Zvi Hecker who’s known as the last expressionist architect, and this time made me realise that architecture deals primarily with materials.

So I started welding and fell in love with architecture and the materials that shape it. Wood, metals and whatnot. What I tell my students now is that they should always eventually learn a craft, not just deep dive into the rendering process which has almost become too fast, especially now with AI. Once you start prompting the computer to ‘do something Le Corbusier like,’ architecture is already a little bit over with. So being more critical is key, thinking about what you are going to do and the responsibility you have as an architect.

For Salone 2024, we are presenting with two major brands - Minotti and Baxter. I gotta say, both of them are working very hard to be more green. The systems they have both built around them shape highly sustainable closed loop, local, zero km policies. They have created this incredibly efficient system. Every Monday morning (Mondays are my Minotti days) we talk about prototypes and whether or not something is off. By the afternoon, a counter-prototype has already been built and you can already look at it. It’s an extremely well-organised system.

HP: Exactly! That’s super important.

Every year, during Salone, I always present one or two ancient techniques that are at risk of being forgotten. There is a heritage, especially in Italy where we are very lucky to have the Brianza Province around Milan which both Minotti and Baxter are a part of. Milan is the ideas hub, the concept hub. The Brianza, which is really all the northern part of Milan, is an incredible network of artisans, small and large. So if you have a small brand, you can work with a smaller maker, whereas if you are a big brand like Minotti, with big production numbers, you can work with a bigger company. It’s a real luxury as an architect or designer. It’s not by chance that brands like Hermes are producing here in Italy.

I’ve been producing some pieces with 6:am, a young glass start-up in Murano where, unlike Anglo-Saxon countries where young start-ups are common, the bureaucracy and artisanal hierarchy that exists here in Italy usually means makers are in their 40s before they start producing on a significant level.

HP: Oh yeah, definitely. We don’t always have the numbers and that is tricky. If you have numbers like Minotti, you have real power. If you work with galleries, it's much more pricey which is why collectible design has a much higher price-point. One of the wonderful things is that, in every form of design I think there is something very very interesting. How is it to think about, for instance, using such tiny pieces of marble? It’s so sustainable. The artisan for the Sole Table would buy scrapes of marble and then turn them into something incredibly beautiful. How wonderful is that?!

Every year, I try to bring certain older techniques back.

HP: Yes, I just finished a beautiful apartment here in Milan where we used the Seminato technique. It’s something that only two or three places in Italy are capable of doing, which means probably nowhere else in the world could. When we talk about techniques getting lost, I try very hard to show the world what is still possible which means also convincing a client to dive very deeply into their pockets. It's a Venetian technique using marble powder, scattered in a similar way to the agricultural practice of broadcasting seed by hand. To create complexity, I combined the Seminato technique with mosaic and then the whole thing was polished to a super high gloss. It was very fashionable around 400 BC.

In this instance, the client and his children became involved in the technique. The daughter painted a flower for example, and what has happened is that they have become inherently involved in the design of their home.

Another technique is the one I’m working on with 6:am.

When I was 4 -5 years old, my mother brought me to Milan. I hated it. It was so hot and dirty and everyone was sweating and I wondered why on earth anyone would want to be there. And then one day some glass blowers asked me if I wanted to blow and form glass. It was like an adventure and many years later, when the guys from 6:am knocked on my door asking me if I had an idea for something they were working on, I knew that this glass technique I had in mind was perfect.

We are now producing Paysage chandeliers that adorn every single Christian Dior store. The modular design is made up of hand-cast glass petals made in Murano by maestro Armando Bottero.

HP: Yes. We are so not used to producing architectural pieces like this here anymore. The making process has been taken over by all the tourist pieces that, although they use some old techniques, are always the same and there is no artistic growth.

We had to work with the youngest glass master of all time. He’s 32. Usually, you become a master at 40 - 45. Ironically, he studied physics at MIT and then, during a summer period when he didn’t know what to do he came to Murano and fell head-over-heels in love with the glass techniques. He’s been standing next to an oven every day since.

It is so hard today to find large-scale chandeliers. Even a relatively small chandelier on First Dibs will cost around €100k. It’s a lot of money!!!! I’d rather design something more architectural. That’s what 6:am and I did together. We created a chandelier design that is made up of individually shaped glass petals, precisely hand-formed in the 15 seconds you have after the partially cooled molten glass comes out of a rectangular mould. It’s a semi-liquid state so it settles and is then pinched into its final form. We made one piece in 2021 that had 1000 glass petals. It’s 5m x 5m x 6.5m and hangs down to reaching height from the ground. We are producing one now that will go to Dubai and has 1,600 glass pieces. It’s been since Carlo Scarpa’s 1958 chandelier design for Venini that anything of this exaggerated architectural design was achieved. That one had over 6000 pieces. It’s being reproduced at a smaller scale at the moment and Venini reached out to the guys at 6:am about production. Can you imagine!? These guys are 28-29 years old and being contacted by their idols for advice!

I admire the 6:am guys so much for starting so small, and so custom. It’s something I could really relate to.

HP: It’s crazy that you are on the other side of the planet yet we could almost be in the same room. The colour on the walls behind us is even the same colour [laughs]!

I’m very thankful. I could never do a project in New York or Australia without modern technologies.

HP: I would acknowledge the responsibility. You think of Brancusi and Henry Moore and think, no no I can’t do that. I’m waiting for an idea that’s so genius, that’s so different that it will be a game changer on how to use the lost-wax technique. I’m dreaming at night about it but I’m not there yet.

I’m waiting for my research to show me what I really have to say, rather than for a gallerist to tell me simply that a bronze piece would sell well. I’m less Mr Castelli / Andy Warhol and more Ms Guggenheim / Mr Pollock style where she had the utmost respect for the artist and he had smashed his first painting on the entrance wall to her apartment. Maybe I should just start but measuring up against heavyweights like Jean Arp is daunting. I want to have something to say.

A very special thanks to Hannes Peer. Find out more via his website or Instagram. Interview by Tiffany Jade.