Table Top: Gesa Hansen, Villeroy & Boch
The multi-talented Gesa Hansen is an award-winning German-Danish designer with a long list of credentials. After graduating from the Bauhaus University and Nagoya Zokei University of Art & Design in Japan, she then enhanced her training in Paris working for Jean Nouvel Atelier and H5 and continued to work in Japan at the Nippon Design Centre.
She founded her design studio The Hansen Family in 2009 and together with Pascaline Feutry and Ai Bihr they opened interior design studio HFB Studio in 2011 in Paris and New York.
Gesa’s list of accolades includes two Red Dot Design awards and the Good Design award, plus she was listed in Wallpaper magazine’s power 200 in 2015, amongst others.
Gesa has partnered with premium ceramic producer Villeroy & Boch to develop the colour concept collection of luxury Artis washbasins. Villeroy & Boch is an international lifestyle brand founded in 1748 and is deeply rooted in European culture, producing stylish products for interiors.
Featuring a combination of elegant shapes and bold hues, the basins are unique, modern and exquisitely designed. Gesa was inspired by the seasonal colours in Paris and developed a palette of shades that represent the fresh greens of spring, to the radiant summer sunshine. The colours transcend the world of fashion and happily integrate themselves into the world of interiors. With fifteen colour options in the collection, you’ll be able to find a shade that fits with your personality and taste.
Here, Gesa shows us the elegant display on her coffee table. Centred around design books, you’ll find examples such as Interior Portraits, a new book by Leslie Williamson, which Gesa describes as ‘my new Bible’ since all interiors are photographed in natural light. Alongside it is the classic title Super Normal, about an exhibition organised by Jasper Morrison and Nato Fukasawa, which Gesa exclaims is ‘one of the best exhibitions I've ever seen’. Sitting alongside these design tomes are Gesa’s wayfarer sunglasses that she’s worn for 20 years, Muji pens – which she says are the best to draw with – a measuring tape and ruler, ‘I always have with me to measure furniture and for drawing’, and most importantly my passport, so ‘I feel I can leave at any time’. And of course, my Moleskine drawing books for sketches and notes.
To find out more about Gesa and her design studio, visit: http://gesahansen.com/