Ross Lovegrove

Biography

Ross Lovegrove was born in Wales and in 1983 graduated from the Royal College of Art in London with a Masters Degree in Industrial Design, showing seminal works; Kodak Digital Camera and Equestrian Chaise long.

Scouted by Frogdesign in Germany, then considered the world's leading design studio to head up advanced innovation on Apple and Sony programmes leading to advances in the dematerialisation of the Sony Walkman and developments in portable computers and accessories.

Joining Knoll International in Paris he created the revolutionary Alessandri office system understanding the fusion between high culture, technology and art, aligning with Design and Architectural greats such as Ettore Sottsass, Isamu Noguchi, Harry Bertoia and Saarinen in Organic Design.

At the age of 27 he was selected to be amongst the 5 top French Designers with Jean Nouvel and Philippe Stark to be a member of the Atelier De Nimes.

In 1998 he was awarded the Medaille De la Ville de Paris.

Establishing Studio X in London in 1990 he built his current studio next to the original studio of David Hockney in Notting Hill.

Zaha Hadid mentioned that "Ross's studio is a wonderland of form and technology like stepping into a space ship"

Ross Lovegrove creates incredibly sophisticated forms from cars, to aircraft interiors, cameras, watches, bicycles and even everyday objects like water bottles Regarded as the true modern master of sculpting materials and technology known as Captain Organic, his design language is of unparalleled influence on the new emerging generation of designers with a heightened awareness of emotional intelligence in the field.

Lovegrove still drives the very first all aluminium Audi A2 imported into the UK almost 15 years ago, is an environmentalist, humanist and advocates that "one cannot be human-centric without first being earth-centric".

He is not a consumerist but collects the drawings of Henry Moore, Anonymous Primordial Objects and Tribal Art, rarified artefacts of depth and meaning and it is his love of the opposite polarities of the Deep Past and the Deep Future that humanist entrepreneurs and innovators seek out today to relate their projects to the bigger picture of life on Earth from spaceships to visions for Science fiction movies recently to Facebook's new handheld tablet.

His respect for and understanding evolution's principles and nature took him recently to the Galapagos Islands with Richard Dawkins to reinstate his understanding of biodiversity and to discuss the possibility that creativity itself can have a gene.

He has an innate sense of what can come next by imagining sequences of how a new clean industrial age can emerge from biological rather than mechanical systems.

He has spoken twice at TED global, the first in Monterey Calif in February 2005 entitled Inspired by Nature with Craig Ventor who mapped the Human Genome, Dr James Watson who discovered DNA and Janine Benyus, the author of Biomimicry.

The second at Oxford University in June 2009 was presented as "Lovegrove Genesis" talking about predictive anticipatory sequencing so that in the future products will be created via optimised algorithms to be as efficient as possible in material and energy appropriation.

His work has been featured in two CNN "Just Imagine" programs with a global audience of 200 million showing his early innovation in autonomous vehicles (COAS) and off-grid autonomous living (Alpine Capsule).

Swarovski Crystal Aerospace, a solar car concept fusing polycrystaline photovoltaics with crystal is considered as one of the Worlds most important Design /Art works as it has traversed Art, Design, Science, Technology in Automotive being exhibited in Art Basel Miami, The Salone Milan, Friebourge Solar Fair, MAK Vienna and the key contemporary exhibit at the History of The Automobile in Turin Italy.

His work as a sculptor of form has positioned him within the top five collectable Designer/Artists of our time.

He holds several honorary doctorates and won the prestigious World Technology Awards, WTA in 2005.

His work will be honoured in April 2017 at the Centre Georges Pompidou over 1000 sqm with a major introspective entitled CONVERGENCE which will fuse together his philosophy in design embracing science, technology, biology, technopaleontology, evolutionary principles, organic essentialism, ecology, materials and the emergent technology of 3D printing.

Personal life

Ross Lovegrove was raised in Penarth by parents who were first cousins and who both hold the name Lovegrove.

The son of a highly decorated Naval Officer HWJ Lovegrove known as 'Stormy' who remained in honorary service up until his 85th birthday, by whom he was given a reverence and affection for the sea and the dignity of an elegant dress code.

He spent most of his young life walking alone in nature and would be amazed by picking out fossils from the mud on the coast whilst in awe of the abstraction of the place where Guglielmo Marconi made the first radio broadcast across the English Channel high on the cliff top.

Besides their studio and principle residence in Notting Hill designed by Miska they own Palace Court a very elegant apartment next to Kensington Palace and are about to finish the 17-year restoration of Factoria Angilelska in Kazimierz Dolny, Poland; a 15th-century building that will house a 12m high staircase designed by Ross.

"He has a fearless approach for form and an unlimited expanse of creativity…..he sees no boundaries , he's driven by other values" Miska –Miller Lovegrove

"His drawings have always predicted the future, designing things which he just didn't know if they could be made …..now they can" Miska –Miller Lovegrove

"Ross is absolutely genius of what he doesn't know" Richard Paul McMillen

"Form is the 5th dimension that moves our collective consciousness" Ross Lovegrove

"Nature is a force the like speed of light or gravity" Ross Lovegrove

"The emergence of artificial complex organic form as our future aesthetic is inevitable" Ross Lovegrove

"Intelligent life on a planet comes of age when it first works out the reasons for its existence" Dedicated to Ross Lovegrove by Richard Dawkins

Awards

Exhibitions