Demeyere - John Pawson 6 Piece Cookware Set

John Pawson has been designing buildings and objects for more than twenty-five years, with work realised on four continents for a wide range of clients and covering a breadth of scales and programmes. From the beginning his approach to making architecture has drawn comparisons with the art movement known as Minimalism. More helpful, perhaps, is its characterisation as an attitude to space, light and proportion.

On his acclaimed collaboration with Demeyere, Pawson says, "A museum director once said of my work, 'Everything starts with the kitchen'. What he meant was that houses are the heart of the work and kitchens are the heart of the houses. My collaboration with Demeyere started with the idea of providing these most important of contemporary living spaces with a set of core equipment which would combine functional sophistication with the highest design values. A pan might seem like a very straightforward object to design, but the reality is that smallness of scale does not equate with lack of complexity. The union of form and function must be seamless. There would have been no point in identifying the perfect simple profile, for example, if the lip did not pour well. Visual comfort would likewise lose its value if the pan did not feel good in the hand. I knew I could leave the more specialised technical issues to the team at Demeyere. My efforts have focused on the shape of the body and on the detail and angle of the junction between body and handle. My goal has been something which looked different, but right, equally at home over a flame or on a table – modern but not modish and thus liable to lose its freshness quickly."

Although his work has been described as having an abstract quality, it is rigorously grounded in a precise understanding of the grain of everyday life. Whether a house, store, gallery, bridge, monastery or cookpot, for Pawson the fundamental challenge is always the same: how people, space and objects may be brought into harmony with one another.