Interview with Christian Kroepfl

I was able to make beautiful drawings at an early age. I was drawing a lot together with friends. I remember us sitting at a friend's house, his father had many huge old electrical plans and we used the backs of these plans for our drawings. Also I was interested in art and design already as a young boy. Sometimes I skipped school with a friend to visit exhibitions in Zurich or Basel - I grew up in Austria near the Swiss border. Becoming a furniture designer happened coincidentally, I worked on an architectural project and I was asked to design a series of tables. Three months later we presented them on the Vienna Furniture Fair...

I always start with pen and paper. These two and imagination are the most useful aspects of any design - the rest is nice to have. Sometimes I make models. In the second step I use the computer for 2D drawings to check my thoughts, then I check again with paper and pen. Drawings in 3D I use in the next step. If you start too early with 3D, it's very dangerous. Your brain must design the project and it's easy to be deceived as a designer by nice forms in 3D. Never forget the sections at this point!

I like the outdoors, hiking, skiing, camping, travelling... When I was a boy scout, the most useful thing I learned is to need as less as necessary and enough as possible.

At the moment I’m working on a sofa and children furniture. The current project(s) always is/are the most beautiful and enjoyable one(s).

Never work for free! Remember, you are well educated professionals and those guys who want your work for free get a lot of money for cheating you.

see point 7

I don’t have a daily routine. Every day is different, although I wish I had more time to develop.

I don't follow trends intentionally, it really happens. But sometimes I get an assignment by a client who follows these trends.

A good desing fulfills the purpose for which it was made.

A design is never ready from my point of view, you can always optimize it. But there is a certain point, and you feel, that it is impossible to really make it better reasonably or you feel that it's getting worse. Then stop or go back, rethink! Maybe it's really finished?

Every work is unique in it's way. My favourite design is the table KT8. It's so simple and simultaneously elegant.

Bo Hilleberg

Emotional but true. Well, I'm still a boy-scout, I guess: "Try and leave this world a little better than you found it, and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate, you have not wasted your time but have done your best." Robert Baden-Powell

Well, I love working. There is nothing worse than inactivity.

see point 15

Honestly, I must determine that many design competitions are outrageously expensive. I used to say, that if I were born again, I would start a religion or a design competition. But I think that you guys are really interested in design, you want to bring something further and you really try to support the designers. Chapeau!

I simply like it to create.

Actually I wanted to become a designer when I was a teenager but I preferred to study architecture and urban planning at the university. Becoming a designer happened randomly, I was asked to the design a few tables...

It is all about functional design. I like to design everyday's objects.

I don't think that I'm a design legend. Never work for free! If somebody doesn't want to pay you for your work, he or she is not a professional. Avoid these people, they are only trying to use you!

It must fulfill its function and you must see that: this can be comfort or representation,...

First of all good design simply works. If you invest in a good design objects like a table, the chance is high that it doesn't only satisfy your needs. It will also increase its economical value.

A school in Nepal.

Glenn Murcutt, Josef Frank, Roland Rainer, Adolf Loos, LC, Sverre Fehn,...

Actually I like anonymous functional design that simply works.

I don't think that there is a greatest design, I do have a preferred one - it is a table called KT8 made of wood: a solid wood table supported by a simple delicate wood truss. The use of traditional wood joinery, in combination with a well-conceived construction method, allowed for a 20% reduction in the wood cross sections that one would ordinarily expect on such leg structures.

Nid lugg lau!

archaeologist or historian

The clarity of design and the deliberate restraint to the essential is the most important thing to me.

family and friends, especially Harald Gorbach, Nik Smutny, Zdenek Svoboda, Tomas Nekula, Petr Suman, Hana Tumova, and all the other guys from SWN

Again, I don't see myself as a master.

Nid lugg lau!

Actually it is not only about beauty, it is about making people's lives easier.

A children's desk and an office line.

Designing a garden city with 160 flats for an 90 years old famous Austrian architect called Roland Rainer, when I was a young architect.

That depends on the project.

I start with hand drawings and models, the computer is part of the second step, then starts prototyping,...

Good design makes a decent living possible.

Technology creates form. If you use wood, the legs of a chair look different to legs designed in steel,...

Colours, materials and ambient create form. If you use wood, the legs of a chair look different to legs designed in steel,...

Where can I buy it?

Wow, a functional idea!

Yes, it is always about interfering with each other...

"A Pattern Language" by C. Alexander

My loved ones.

Being a guy from the mountains, it is a wonderful experience to wake up in a sleeping bag on top of a mountain with a great view. The grass is still wet, the sunlight is clear,...

Well, I'm the only member in my studio, but I often work together with other architects and designers.

The clarity of design and the deliberate restraint to the essential is the most important thing to me.

I like creating things with a clear function that help people, I'm not a sculptor.

This is constantly changing, it's always the product I'm working on.

I prefer natural materials like wood, steel, linoleum,...

I need to be relaxed, but I need a certain tension.

function, and then of course form

All of them: passion, hope, happiness, fear, excitement,...

There is always a certain tension, it's always a work in progress. Sometimes the production method changes, so there are little differences,... It is a never ending story, I love it.

There are different point of views: If I'm happy with it, it is a success for me. If it sells well, the distributor is happy and thinks it is a success...

It must fulfill its function and you must see that: this can be comfort or representation,...

Actually it is not only about beauty, it is about making people's lives easier.

There is always a place for function and beauty.

My last exhibition was in October 2016 Prague - Designblok, in May 2017 you can find some of my products for palatti at the "moebel austria" in Salzburg, Austria.

As an architect I think always about function; combined with certain materials - the form follows logically. Products must work properly.

I think I do not have a certain style, products are developed by their functions and given materials. Of course, you can call this style, I don't. A personal style is not important to me.

It is more about the personal environment, the country is simply a part of it.

Sometimes I get a direct inquiry, sometimes I offer a design to a company.

Look at their work!

I start with hand drawings and models, the computer is part of the second step, then starts prototyping,...

pencil, aquafix (Austrian brand of transparent paper), desk, "Wiener Stadthallensessel", computer

It's like anyone else's day.

Never work for free! If somebody doesn't want to pay you for your work, he or she is not a professional. Avoid these people, they are only trying to use you!

On one side it is about creating things, one the other side it is about paying your rent. It's like anyone else's life.

Nid lugg lau!

ability to focus, technical understanding, empathy, business efficiency, and passion

A pencil, paper, rubber, PC, and an excellent monitor, of course!

Keep a good balance between time spent and time paid.

That depends on the project.

Designing a garden city with 160 flats for an 90 years old famous Austrian architect called Roland Rainer, when I was a young architect.

see website: www.christiankroepfl.com

I prefer designs with a clear function. I'm just that kind of type.

At the moment I'm developing a children's table.

In the end it is always team work.

M: +43 699 10454706
E: office@christiankroepfl.com

Thanks for your time!