Ora Ïto

In 1997, Ora Ïto hijacked top brands with his virtual Vuitton and Apple prod­ucts that instantly became global icons of the digital revo­lu­tion. A phenom­e­non in pop culture, he is the youngest designer of his gener­a­tion to collab­o­rate with jewels of luxury goods and indus­try, after the huge multi-acclaimed success of his aluminum Heineken bottle.

Cassina, Cappellini, Bouygues, Alstom, Laguiole, Zanotta and Accor highly rate his sculp­tural design that has become a mark of modernity.

The multi­dis­ci­pli­nary, trans­ver­sal Ora ïto studio has since gone from tele­phone to archi­tec­ture, from furni­ture to the hotel indus­try, from perfume to tramways and from flying saucers to restau­rants, manip­u­lat­ing symbols to simplify them. A tena­cious method­ol­ogy for which he has invented a neol­o­gism: simplic­ity, decod­ing today’s DNA to concep­tu­al­ize future muta­tions. His fluid vocab­u­lary mate­ri­al­izes move­ment rein­vent­ing stream­lin­ing in the digital era and giving shape to the desires of our contemporary society.

In 2013, he created MAMO, an art center on the roof terrace of the myth­i­cal Cité Radieuse designed by Le Corbusier in Marseille. A histor­i­cal and contem­po­rary place high in the sky, with a 360° view that summa­rizes his passion for levi­ta­tion and light­ness, ​‘Defying the laws of gravity creates feel­ings that go beyond aesthet­ics.’ The great­est contem­po­rary artists from Xavier Veilhan to Dan Graham are exhib­ited there before Ito inau­gu­rates an archi­tec­tural collab­o­ra­tion with Daniel Buren, the master of French conceptual art.

Ora ïto now attracts media and economic bene­fits that make him a unique player in the inter­na­tional design arena. Wall­pa­per ranked him amongst the top 40 most influ­en­tial design­ers under 40 years old. He was appointed Cheva­lier des Arts et des Lettres in 2011.