Prix Liliane Bettencourt pour
l'Intelligence de la Main 2024
Image: Console Pseudosphères by Nadège Mouyssinat.
© Julie Limont for the Fondation Bettencourt Schueller
CRAFT
Nadège Mouyssinat
Talents d'exception
Nadège Mouyssinat is the winner of the Prix Liliane Bettencourt pour l'Intelligence de la Main 2024 in the section Talents d'exception for her piece Console Pseudosphères, an almost hypnotic work composed of a forest of porcelain cones reflected in a mirror, giving the impression of floating in space. After four years of creation, from conception to completion, the work was designed to evoke emotion. The visual disturbance gives the viewer a feeling of almost spiritual lightness, with the curves of the cones mirroring the curves of the hyperbolas, which tend towards infinity.
Image: Tresser l'ombre by Catherine Romand, basket maker and Clémence Althabegoïty, designer.
© Julie Limont for the Fondation Bettencourt Schueller
CRAFT | DESIGN
Catherine Romand and Clémence Althabegoïty
Dialogues
Catherine Romand, basket maker and Clémence Althabegoïty, designer, are the winners of the Prix Liliane Bettencourt pour l'Intelligence de la Main 2024 in the section Dialogues, for their piece Tresser l'ombre [Weaving the shadow], a woven wicker shade, as futuristic as it is poetic. The shade is designed to provide protection from the sun, but also to track the position of its rays in order to identify the seasons, like an immersive sundial. For Tresser l'ombre, the duo first called on Pascal Descamp, an astronomer at the Observatoire de Paris, who defined the sun's trajectories in the Touraine region using a series of algorithms.
Image: © Julie Limont for the Fondation Bettencourt Schueller
CRAFT
Acta Vista
Parcours
The Acta Vista association is the winner of the Prix Liliane Bettencourt pour l'Intelligence de la Main 2024 in the section Parcours. Founded in 2002 in Marseille, the Acta Vista association is focused on the singular objective of making cultural heritage restoration a means of creating jobs and passing on know-how. Since its creation, Acta Vista has trained over 8,500 people and restored some 40 heritage sites in the three regions where the association operates.
About the Prix Liliane Bettencourt pour l'Intelligence de la Main
LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2025
Image: Kunimasa Aoki, Japan, Realm of Living Things 19, terracotta.
CRAFT
Kunimasa Aoki
LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize
The LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2025 was awarded to Kunimasa Aoki for the piece Realm of Living Things 19. The jury chose the work for its honest expression of the ancestral coil process and how the material is expressed in its raw, unfinished form. The anamorphic clay work explores the ways in which the material distorts and cracks when force is applied. Gravity, time and pressure were used to take clay to the limits of its material possibilities. Thin coils of clay were repeatedly stacked, moulded and compressed into layers, then the work was fired in an electric kiln until it began to burn and smoke. The piece was then coated with a decorative finish made of soil, glue and pencil marks.
About the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize
FRAME Awards 2024
Image: We+, Shiseido Beauty Innovation 2020, Tokyo, Japan.
DESIGN
We+
Design of the Year
We+ scored a hat-trick at the FRAME Awards 2024, taking home not only the prizes for Set Design of the Year and Best Use of Colour, but also the prestigious title of Designer of the Year. The Tokyo-based studio was founded in 2013 by Hokuto Ando and Toshiya Hayashi, who describe their designs – which aim to foster a deep coexistence with the natural and social environment – as ‘alternative’.
Design Parade Toulon 2025
Image: Thomas Takada, Au point calme d'un monde qui tourne. © Luc Bertrand
DESIGN
Thomas Takada
Grand Prix Design Parade Toulon Van Cleef & Arpels
The Grand Prix Design Parade Toulon Van Cleef & Arpels was awarded to Thomas Takada for his project Au point calme d'un monde qui tourne [At the still point of the turning world], taken from a poem by T.S. Elliot. Paris-based architect and artist Thomas Takada was inspired by the sense of alienation and abstraction in our physical environment. His installation is made up of plant elements gleaned from around the villa Noailles - leaves, branches, pebbles - assembled using standardised metal profiles to create highly fragile interdependent structures. The work is both poetic and critical, questioning contemporary materiality and rehabilitating the organic in the field of creation.
Design Parade Hyères 2025
Image: Simon Dupety, UFO – Unindustrial Functional Object. © Luc Bertrand
DESIGN
Simon Dupety
Grand Prix Design Parade Hyères
The Grand Prix Design Parade Hyères was awarded to Simon Dupety for his project UFO – Unindustrial Functional Object. The Paris-based designer orchestrates an unexpected encounter between nature and industry: oak acorns, harvested in the forest, are combined with aluminium sections and small LEDs to create a series of unique lights. The work, which takes a slow, thoughtful approach to time, moves away from standards to better celebrate the alterity of form.
Grands Prix de la Création
de la Ville de Paris 2024
Image: Atelier Sumbiosis & Harumi Sugiura, Undula dyed pleat.
Marlène Huissoud, Cocoon book shelves, 2017.
CRAFT | DESIGN
Atelier Sumbiosis
Marlène Huissoud
Prix Engagement
At the Grands Prix de la Création de la Ville de Paris 2024, the Prix Engagement was presented in three categories - craft, design and fashion - to a professional for thier creative and innovative approach and their ability to develop and provide solutions to the challenges and uses of our time. In craft, Atelier Sumbiosis, founded by Tony Jouanneau, won for its textile finishing work based on eco-design, bio-design and bio-manufacturing. Marlène Huissoud, who works with insect waste, won in the design category.
Image: Antonin Mangin, Mirella bob © Louise Desnos.
Wendy Andreu, Taupe mirror.
CRAFT | DESIGN
Antonin Mongin
Wendy Andreu
Prix Révélation
Also presented in three categories - craft, design and fashion - the Prix Révélation acts as a talent spotlight, rewarding young talents whose projects are promising, creative and have prospects for development. In craft, textile designer Antonin Mongin was recognised for his work with materials such as human hair and horsehair, and his plant based handcrafted faux furs. Wendy Andreu, who moulds three-dimensional textiles without waste, won in the design category.
About the Grands Prix de la Création de la Ville de Paris
Dezeen Awards 2024
Image: Studio Sabine Marcelis and SolidNature, The Vondel Fountain, Stacked, Vondelpark, Amsterdam. © SolidNature
DESIGN
Studio Sabine Marcelis
Designer of the year
Dutch designer Sabine Marcelis is an artist and designer who runs her eponymous practice in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Marcelis works in the fields of product, installation and spatial design, using material research and experimentation to develop new and surprising visual effects that have a strong focus on materiality. Recent projects span an installation featuring four rotating glass pillars for the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, a collaboration with Japanese artisans for London Design Festival and a water fountain made using repurposed onyx stone in Amsterdam.
Image: CHZON, Cowley Manor Hotel, Cotswolds, United Kingdom. © Patrick Locqueneux
DESIGN
CHZON
Interior designer of the year
French interior designer Dorothée Meilichzon founded her Paris-based studio CHZON in 2009, which specialises in hospitality projects including restaurants, retail and hotels. Projects by studio CHZON include a boutique hotel featuring chequerboard details inspired by Alice in Wonderland in the Cotswolds, and a London restaurant with oakwood panelling, duck-egg leather stools and custom marble-topped tables in homage to Parisian bistros.
