Jil Sander Quotes

I don't particularly follow the Bauhaus school of design, where you make everything into a black box - simplify it.

My apartment reflects my views as an architect. It is minimal, austere. The architecture doesn't impose itself upon you. The apartment is a stage for other things to take place.

Good design means as little design as possible.

A formally harmonious product needs no decoration; it should be elevated through pure form.

In a minimal interior, what you don't do is as important as what you do.

I'm very classic and structural. I love clean lines and interesting, modern details. But I'm all about being streamlined - less is more.

I don't think there is anything wrong with white space. I don't think it's a problem to have a blank wall.

To me, the fashion and architecture I like are very closely linked. Both should be clean and simple and without embellishment.

I believe designers should eliminate the unnecessary. That means eliminating everything that is modish because this kind of thing is only short-lived.

My design is no design.

My design preference tends towards warmth, comfort, and minimalism.

Good design is as little design as possible. Less, but better - because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.

I strive for an architecture from which nothing can be taken away.

Design must be functional, and functionality must be translated into visual aesthetics without any reliance on gimmicks that have to be explained.

Good design should be honest.

I don't like a lot of feathers and frills. I like a clean aesthetic, a Calvin Klein aesthetic.

Spare functional furniture, in my opinion, is the genius of 20th-century design.

I believe consistency and orthogonality are tools of design, not the primary goal in design.

I like sparseness. There's something about that minimalist feel that can make something have an immediate impact and make it unique. I'll probably always work with that formula; I just don't know how.

Modernism, rebelling against the ornament of the 19th century, limited the vocabulary of the designer. Modernism emphasized straight lines, eliminating the expressive S curve. This made it harder to communicate emotions through design.

Warmth isn't what minimalists are thought to have.

We always correct people who say, 'You're trying to make this look better.' Well yes, we want it to look better, but that's easy. The look and the function are one and the same. They are not separate. It looks good because it functions beautifully. That message is very hard.

The lines of Pearl Art Glass are clean, certainly not cluttered.

Make each product the best it can be. Focus on form and materials. What we don't include is as important as what we do include.

I am always looking for ways to move technology away from being over-featured. Moving to Silicon Valley in the mid-1990s meant I grew up as a designer in an environment where technology is a tool and not a means to an end. I believe that design should be driven by ideas, not style.