Biography
Jasper Morrison (b. London, UK 1959) graduated in Design from Kingston Polytechnic in 1982. Then he attended the Royal College of Art for postgraduate studies, which included a year at Berlin’s HdK art school. He set up his Office for Design in London in 1986. He established himself with two installations: Reuters News Centre at Documenta 8 in Kassel in 1987, and Some New Items for the Home, Part I, at the DAAD Gallery in Berlin as part of Berlin Design Werkstadt in 1988. His earliest designs were produced by Aram and SCP in London, Neotu in Paris, FSB in Germany and Cappellini in Italy. In 1989, he began collaboration with Vitra with the exhibition Some New Items for the Home, Part II, at Milan's Furniture Fair. He went on to form Utilism International with Andreas Brandolini and Axel Kufus, providing exhibition design and town planning services. In 1994 Jasper began a consultancy with Üstra, the Hanover transport authority, designing a bus shelter and then the new Hanover tram. Further collaborations began in this period with projects for the Italian companies Alessi, Flos, and Magis, and the German porcelain manufacturer Rosenthal.
In the 2000s Morrison worked on a project for Rowenta to design a set of kitchen appliances, and he began consultancies with Muji, Samsung, Ideal Standard and Established & Sons. In 2006 he collaborated with Japanese designer Naoto Fukasawa on the exhibition Super Normal at Axis Gallery, Tokyo. It was followed by a book and toured to London, Milan, Helsinki and New York. This exhibition inspired the opening of the Jasper Morrison Shop beside his London studio in 2009. The Shop presents an exhibition each year during London Design Festival. Since 2010 Morrison has collaborated with Spanish companies Camper, Kettal and Andreu World, and US companies Maharam and Emeco. He is art director of Swiss electronics company Punkt. In 2014 he designed the furniture for the extension to Tate Modern, more than ten years after working on the opening of the museum with the architects Herzog & de Meuron.
Jasper Morrison has had solo exhibitions in Tokyo at Axis Gallery, Yamagiwa and HH Style. Among his other exhibitions, he presented Au Musée at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs Bordeaux in 2009 and in 2011 he curated Danish Design, I Like It, at the Copenhagen Design Museum. In 2015 a retrospective exhibition opened at the Grand-Hornu, Belgium, accompanied by a new monograph A Book of Things. Previous books include Everything But The Walls and The Good Life, both published by Lars Müller. Morrison has been a Royal Designer for Industry since 2001. Jasper Morrison Ltd currently has offices in London, Tokyo and Paris.
