In conversation with Editor in Chief Zarko Davinic, visionary designer MATHIEU LEHANNEUR discusses redefining the limits of design, from Olympic torches to therapeutic objects, exploring how creativity, emotion, and radical humanity shape the future of our built world.
ORDER IN PRINT AND DIGITAL
Your work spans architecture, product design, and even reimagining how we consume antibiotics. How do you approach defying traditional boundaries within the design world, and what drives you to explore such diverse fields? – I’m a designer who still doesn’t know what design is; or more precisely, where it begins and where it ends. I see design as a grey area, a territory without fixed borders. It is a great chance: my job is a field of endless opportunities.
People often associate design with aesthetics, beauty, and harmonious proportions, but that’s not my conception of my work; the main purpose is to create a link between an object and a human being.
I am convinced that the designer’s challenge is not to design a perfect form, but an object that reaches the user’s “primitive core.” What really interests me is the capacity of an object to fulfill a function and solve a problem, but also to produce an emotion, and induce or change behaviours or beliefs.
When the director of a hospital asks me to work on a project for a palliative care unit, when a countryside parish priest asks me to create the choir for a Romanesque church, or when I work with Harvard University to develop a domestic air purifier that uses plants to clean up our interiors, I realize how powerful the impact of design can be on life, how it can transform our lives.
Many of your projects focus on improving human life. How do you balance functionality and innovation while addressing societal challenges? – The creation of smart devices, from air purifiers to light therapy instruments, stems from a commitment to enhancing the quality of life. I believe design should transcend conventional boundaries and innovation must foster a deeper connection between individuals and their environments, promoting not just comfort, but a profound and harmonious way of living.
Beyond the idea of functionality, I also strive to instill the ‘feeling of life’. Statistically, being alive is a miracle. All of us are the winners of an incredible lottery.
The designer’s challenge is not to design a perfect form, but an object that reaches the user’s primitive core.
During the pandemic, I’ve created “State of the World”, a series of aluminum sculptures whose forms are based on age pyramids from different countries around the globe. In this very particular moment in our history, I wanted to be able to embody humanity in its entirety; to be able to crystallize the infinitely large and complex in objects that we can hold in our hands. Using population statistics made available by the United Nations, I wanted to capture a “snapshot” of all the humans living today in over 200 countries. Belonging to a group or a country is a much more intense and permanent feeling than any form of patriotism. I think that this project evokes that; it reminds us that everyone is part of a bigger entity.
In January 2025, I launched “I am” at Christie’s in Paris, a collection that continues to question the relationship between the whole and the singular. Approximately 80 billion people have lived on Earth since the dawn of humanity—a number so vast it’s difficult to grasp. Yet, each of those lives is singular, absolutely original. Through “I Am,” I want to encapsulate this individuality.
What is your perspective on the current state of the design world? Are there trends, challenges, or shifts that you find particularly urgent or inspiring? – The design world began addressing sustainable issues many years ago. The consciousness of designers has been ready and in motion for around 20 years: reducing the weight of objects and things to minimize pollution linked to transport, facilitating assembly and disassembly to extend the life of products after use, and utilizing virtuous materials and nearby production sites.
The solutions are also to be sought from consumers. A few years ago, a major household appliance brand told to me that they had had to add weight to a coffee maker because the designer had managed to make it too light. Customers did not want it because in their mind’s “light” meant “bad quality”! So, the brand decided to add metal dust to the product; the weight increased, and so did the sales.
Design often reflects the cultural and societal shifts of its time. How do you see your work as a reflection of the world we live in, and how do you adapt to these changes? – I don’t know if my work reflects the world we live in, but I do feel the need to question it.
In nature, the concept of symbiosis is omnipresent; it exists everywhere we look and seems to be the very essence of biology. In our recent history, the frantic race for progress for a cheap price is costing us dearly. This often led us to distance ourselves from the essential equilibrium between human well-being and the environment. In ancient times, architectural wisdom embraced nature, providing temperature-controlled sanctuaries that harmonized with the elements.
I don’t know if my work reflects the world we live in, but I do feel the need to question it.
In January 2024, I presented Outonomy, a project at a crossroads between the fictional and the documentary. I wanted to suggest an alternative vision to the modern representation of man dominating over nature. The idea is to imagine an innovative habitat and a new lifestyle constructed around a virtuous collaboration between human beings and their environment. Far from being nostalgic or trying to backtrack, Outonomy attempts to respond to the question: what do I really need? Without aiming for total self-sufficiency, the desire for independence implies that we must first consider the pillars of our basic needs: my food, my energy, my activities, my security, and my comfort.
Outonomy is inspired by the emergence of survivalist notions that are currently appearing in numerous ways around the globe, from the mild to the highly paranoid. The idea here is not to go down the road of the bunker or to contemplate the apocalypse, but rather to question the life that we wish to lead.
Can you share a project or moment in your career where you deliberately defied conventional norms or expectations to achieve something groundbreaking? – For my diploma project in design school, I proposed exploring the design of medicine to improve a patient’s relationship to its treatment. I was advised against it, as it was considered too complex to engage with the pharmaceutical industry.
At that time, I was doing tests on drugs that allowed me to pay for my design studies. I used to be a guinea pig for pharmaceutical laboratories. I spent whole days in hospital to test the potential side effects of new molecules and new medical treatments before they were put on the market. I discovered a universe in which the body and the mind are intimately linked and this brought inspiration to my Therapeutic Objects project: a new way of conceiving and designing medicines.
This project stemmed from one simple fact: one in every two drugs today is not taken correctly. It is still the case today. With the current form of medications, in half of all cases, the effectiveness of treatment is not optimal despite the constant progress made in pharmacology. It is crucial to consider the behavior of patients towards their treatment. Medications cannot and shouldn’t be directed at the patient only in a chemical sense, without considering the psychological side of the patient themselves.
In 2006, this diploma project was acquired by the permanent collection of MoMA in New York. While it was never commercialized, it continues to resonate; I still receive messages from doctors who believe in its potential.
Collaboration is a key element in your projects. How do you navigate working with diverse teams and disciplines, and how does this influence your creative output? – In the process of creating a new piece, we might find technical limitations along the way, and that’s why they require a long period of research and development from a design and production point of view. However, this is what makes the whole process so interesting and fulfilling; I spend a lot of time in workshops, factories, or laboratories, with artisans or engineers. I always need to understand everything that is possible: materials, techniques, manufacturing processes, new systems as well as older ones to push a project a little bit further.
The Olympic Torch and Cauldron for Paris 2024 are monumental pieces. Can you walk us through your creative process for these designs and how they symbolize the spirit of the Olympics? – Paris 2024 launched a call for tenders for the design of the Olympic and Paralympic torch and cauldron, inviting applicants to interpret and embody their creative vision and ambition. There was no initial brief; we only had to work around some technical constraints. This gave me the freedom to explore new ideas and concepts that would align with their values.
I started with the Torch with is built on 3 main pillars: equality, water, and peacefulness. They struck me from the very beginning as the best incarnations of the Paris Games. They are parts of its values but also elements of context.
Equality, which is expressed as much in the absolute parity male-female athletes as in the equivalent place given to the Olympic and Paralympic Games, is translated through the perfect symmetry of the torch.
Beyond its monuments, Paris represents the art of living along the water’s edge. The Seine is the link and the beating heart of the city; it also served as the theatre for the opening ceremony. The Torch takes inspiration from it by playing with the undulations and reflections in the polished metal that becomes liquid on the lower part.
Finally, the idea of peacefulness is conveyed through a design entirely based on curves and continuous lines. Because even though the Games is a space for competition and performance, the flame remains an object of transmission and the incarnation of peace. In this sense, the Games are a suspended moment in time, a fraternal ambition that sport can and must bring, no matter what torments the world.
Designing the Torch, Relay Cauldron and Cauldron is a designer’s dream: a dream that only comes true once in a lifetime, like a miraculous encounter with History. I designed these creations to be chapters of the same story: the epic journey of the Olympic Flame.
A fire was first lit from the rays of the sun in Olympia and then passed on with the Torch across thousands of kilometers over roadways, oceans and mountains. In each stopover towns, the Relay Cauldron, which acts as a gathering point, was set alight. Arriving at its destination in the heart of Paris, the flame, carried by the flying Cauldron makes its way back into the sky to become a beacon in the night.
During the day, the fire made of light and water, a technology developed by EDF, creates a cool oasis in the heart of summer
Olympic Cauldron will return every summer as part of an annual celebration. Were you aware of this plan, and do you envision any modifications or evolutions for it in the future? – Absolutely. It will return every summer from June 21st to September 14th through 2028. After the Olympic Opening Ceremony on July 27, 2024, all 200,000 reservation slots to see and get close to the Cauldron during the day at the Jardin des Tuileries were sold out within hours. Public petitions also emerged, calling for its permanent installation and every evening, more than 10 000 people gathered at the Jardin des Tuileries to watch the takeoff.
While the Cauldron remains the same in spirit, we’ve worked on a number of improvements to ensure its long-term durability; especially as it was originally designed for the Olympic Games, which last just two and a half weeks. Each year, it will return for an extended run, with an operating period of approximately two and a half months.
Artificial intelligence has sparked debates about its role in the creative industries, with concerns about AI “stealing” from writers, artists and designers. How do you think creatives can defy this trend and protect the integrity of their work? – AI may be the most efficient assistant we could ever imagine, yet it remains bound to the past, as it only processes existing data. This technology’s knowledge and capabilities are based on mathematics and statistics; it aggregates everything that has already occurred and been imagined. Our mission, as designers, is of course, to know what has existed, but above all to understand our present and anticipate what will be.
Innovation and ideas must never come from technology itself, but from our behaviour and, more generally, from our societies.
If I were to ask AI to design an Olympic Cauldron, it would inevitably reference what came before: a tower, a flame holder, perhaps a tribute to iconic forms like the Eiffel Tower. True innovation cannot be born of repetition. Creativity emerges from human intuition, emotion, and curiosity, not from formula, algorithm, or commercial calculation.
Protecting the integrity of creative’s work has always been a challenge; copies and imitation have always existed. However, the emergence of artificial intelligence greatly amplifies this process. That is why, now more than ever, the role of the designer is to remain radically human. Innovation and ideas must never come from technology itself, but from our behaviour and, more generally, from our societies. Technology should be a means of turning an idea into reality, but never its starting point. Don’t look at micro-processors, concentrate on human brains. That’s the only key that opens the door to innovation.
What advice would you give to emerging designers and creatives who are navigating an increasingly complex world, particularly in the face of technological disruptions? – In a fast-moving and often overwhelming world, allow your ideas the time and space to grow at their own rhythm. Resist the pressure to rush and create without compromise. This is how you come to believe in your work and that what you’re making truly matters.
In a fast-moving and often overwhelming world, allow your ideas the time and space to grow at their own rhythm.
Looking ahead, what excites you most about the future of design, and how do you see your work contributing to shaping that future? – I sought to create and develop solutions for our current needs. It would be presumptuous to believe that we are inventing for the future as we do not know what tomorrow will bring. Designers in the future will create meaningful pieces and devices for their present.
his paris installation is everything 😍