The team at Jasper recently got a chance to interview lighting installation artist, Johanna Grawunder. Johanna Grawunder is a designer and architect based in Milan, Italy and San Francisco whose work spans a broad range of projects and scales, from large-scale public installations, architecture and interiors, to limited edition furniture and lights and custom commissions.  Her work is has been shown and is included in many Museum permanent collections, including Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), CNAP, San Francisco MOMA, Art Institute Chicago and the High Museum Atlanta.

Name of the piece at Jasper : Big De Stilj

Description : Installation with clear plexiglass panels with aluminum profiles with integrated RGB LED strips. Steel cables and steel tube supports. Overall size of installation: 350cm x 400cm x 140cm.

What inspired you to begin a career in architectural lighting?

I began my career working as an architect in Italy, and I spent the first 16 years doing mostly architecture; houses, museums, retail spaces as a partner in the studio of Ettore Sottsass. So my background is strongly in architecture and for that reason, I love working with architects, designing custom pieces or installations, that respect and hopefully enhance their architecture. I am not a light designer, but a designer who often uses light as my medium. I think of light as another material, a sort of magical one. I use it in the same way I use texture or color or form, as an integral part of a design. Through architecture, you learn to define spaces with natural light and most of my architectural light installations, such as the Big De Stilj, for Arch. Stanley Saitowitz at Jasper, tries to define spaces with artificial light as well. So integrating light into architecture through art-design was a natural progression.

Describe the lighting, color-work and the philosophy behind the design at Jasper:

The Big De Stilj installation is a custom- designed response to the beautiful spaces, finishes and aesthetic of Stanley Saitowitz’ architecture. We worked very closely together on the scale and proportions of the piece, in order to integrate the piece fully into Stanley’s design, using it to tie the upper level and the lower lounge level visually together. Stanley and the Jasper people wanted the light to be lively and unifying but not overly aggressive. The lounge area is an elegant, warm, and relaxing intimate space, while the upper level Bar area could be more boisterous. So we wanted the possibility to respond to many different scenarios. The Big De Stilj changes colors and is programmed for different “narratives”, the lights will change through out the course of the evening, for example. This gives the piece a kinetic quality as well.

You are well known as an avant-garde lighting designer and a master of color, where might fans of your work view some of your favorite installation or architectural pieces?

Much of my work is in private spaces, so that’s tricky. But here are 5 starting with, of course- Jasper!

1. Jasper, 45 Lansing, lobby
2. Robert Restaurant, Museum of Art and Design, 2, Columbus Circle, NYC
3. WHY, with the artist Ana Teresa Fernandez, 6th and Mission on the side of the Henry Hotel, San Francisco, CA.
4. Freeport Luxembourg, (not exactly open to the public but you can see the exterior lighting from the airport! Luxembourg.
5. Scienze ambientali Università di Ginevra, Boulevard Carl-Vogt, Geneva, Switzerland. Very big light installation, impossible to miss!

Where might someone look to purchase one of your products for a residence interior?

I am represented by Carpenters Workshop Gallery in NYC, Paris and London.

Have any of your travels inspired designs? Which locations and in what way?

Oh my, yes! I have traveled extensively in Italy, India, China, Texas and other very exotic places! Anything can be inspiring- from a tail light on a car, to a sunset over a plain! The trick is not necessarily to have to run all over the planet always, as it is to travel enough in order to learn to see and appreciate what you are seeing. And then be able to call those fragments up, when you want them most.

3 words I’d use to describe Jasper:

Elegant, Energizing, Optimistic.

Just for Fun

Growing up I dreamed of being: (sorry) an architect!
The idea of the future inspires me.
Transparency is the new black.
The person I’d most like to collaborate with on a project: West Coast Customs! (The Pimp My Ride guys) or Kanye.

If I could design anything to add to San Francisco it’d be a new, beautiful and well-lit BART tunnel over to the Marin side of the Bay.

New Apartments for Rent in San Francisco
Residences from studios to three-bedrooms feature interior architectural design by Stanley Saitowitz and open to sweeping views of Downtown, SoMa and San Francisco Bay. It’s a statement about elegance in a place where elegance really means something. Whether you are looking for a 1 bedroom apartment in San Francisco or a 2 bedroom apartment in San Francisco, find yourself at home at Jasper.

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Sincerely Yours,

Jasper