On Design with Justyna Green brings you insightful conversations with the arts & design's most inspiring figures - from designers to architects, editors to creative directors and everybody in between. If you want to know what inspires them, how they work and how they see the world, this is the podcast for you. Listen to the On Design podcast now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play.
On Design podcast host, Justyna Green met Adam Nathaniel Furman at his apartment in the vicinity of Regent's Park. In their conversation, they discuss Furman’s multicultural upbringing and its effects on his notions of identity. With roots in Argentina, Japan and Israel, Furman’s views on design, aesthetics and the society derive from numerous cultures, traditions, and religions, resulting in an open mind and a wealth of informed viewpoints.
They also dive into the relationship between maximalist and minimalist styles and their connections to Calvinism and Catholicism. Furman also explains the differences between the Zen methodology and Shintoism and how these spiritual practices inform Japan's creative culture.
A prolific architecture commentator and designer, Furman ends our conversation with an insight into his current projects and how he translates the notion of objects telling stories, into his practice.
HIGHLIGHTS & TIMESTAMPS
00:03
Taste, objects, expression through interiors, is and always has been a very important mode of identity expression and embodiment for marginalised groups, people who don’t feel they can express in the public space, people who don’t fit it, immigrants.
04:40
Traditionally if you had objects, they weren’t something that would cause anxiety, they were things that would trigger your imagination and your thought and take you out of yourself. They were conversation points and if you were alone, they were meditation triggers. They are calming, they take you out of your inner worries, they turn your inner eye outwards and take you from the lists of your worries and things you have to do, into something that you can contemplate.
39:30
What I’d really like to do is to work with British and European manufacturers because I think we’re returning to a point where global production chains are going back to being closer to where the items are sold and where pieces are produced.
