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Toan Nguyen founded his Milan studio in 2009, embarking on a series of successful collaborations with several major brands in high-quality industry and fine craftmanship in Europe, North America, and Asia, on furniture, lighting, ceramics, as well as on technological products.
Toan Nguyen combines auteur design and the demands of industry with ease. Above and beyond the economic logic inherent to his projects, he strives to open up perspectives for optimization, offering each company the targeted aesthetic or functional resources they require for further development and image building.
A graduate of the ENSCI (Paris) in 1995, his diploma topic presented a foretaste of his individuality: detail in architecture, focusing particularly on technology in the public arena. Such beginnings highlight his attention to detail—a fundamental component of the craft, irrigated by a pronounced interest in industrial manufacturing processes and in how end users appropriate products. Over many years, he has honed this deceptively paradoxical approach during his experiences in Barcelona with Alberto Lievore and in Italy with Antonio Citterio, with whom he has co-signed many lines, for, among others, Axor-Hansgrohe, B&B Italia, Flos, Iittala, Kartell, Technogym, and Vitra.
For Toan Nguyen, design is a discipline intimately bound up with the object, in the traditional sense of the term. Priority is given to physical relationships with users— to them sitting, washing, lighting, etc. Displaying an immediate sense for meaningful utilization, precedence is accorded to intelligible forms and to optimized manufacturing processes, without, however, ever neglecting the sensuality of materials and the emotional impact of the object. Toan Nguyen’s creative singularity has been acknowledged by flagship contemporary design brands such as District Eight, Dedon, Laufen, Bugatti Home, Fendi Casa, Coalesse, Teknion, Studio TK, Vibia, Viccarbe, Walter Knoll, Lema, Busnelli, Wendelbo, RH, among others.
Toan Nguyen is one of a handful of designers who manages to juggle commercial success and impactful communication, a demanding duality that reinforces the impact of each collaboration. Since 2009, Toan Nguyen’s creations have carried off numerous international prizes: a Red Dot Design Award in 2010 and the Interior Innovation Award in 2011 for the stool/side-table, Bellows, issued by Walter Knoll; a Red Dot Design Award in 2012 for the Antero sanitary line developed by Laufen; the Best of NeoCon Award 2013 for the Lagunitas system by Coalesse; in 2014 the Elle Decoration Russia Award for the Cocoon sofa for Fendi Casa; the ISH Design Plus Award 2015 for the Ino line with Laufen; a Good Design Award in 2015 with Infinito Lounge and Masalla by Studio TK; the Archiproducts Design Award’s First Prize 2016 for Algorithm, a lighting system for Vibia, also awarded in 2017 the Interior Design’s Best of Year Award. In 2018, Algorithm won the Architizer A+Award and the Architectural SSL Product Innovation Award. Again in 2017, the Dual Lounge seating with Studio TK won the Interior Design’s HiP Award, the Interior Design’s Best of Year Award and the Good Design Award whilst in 2018 won the Green Good Design Award. The same year, the tn Storage & Accessories Collection for Teknion won the Interior Design’s HiP award 2018, the Best of NeoCon Silver Award 2018 and the Green Good Design Award in 2019.
Toan Nguyen’s designs are made to last, making enduring contributions to a brand’s success and enhancing its visibility; every project undertaken pushes frontiers and takes up fresh challenges.
