Inga Sempé (born 1968) is a French designer and constructor of technical items, who designs furniture, lamps and other design objects for manufacturers like

Ligne Roset Ligne Roset is a French modern furniture company that has over 200 stores and more than 1,000 retail distributors worldwide. The company was founded by Antoine Roset in 1860 in Montagnieu, France as a small business manufacturing bentwood walking ...

, Alessi und

Baccarat Baccarat or baccara (; ) is a card game played at casinos. It is a comparing card game played between two hands, the "player" and the "banker". Each baccarat coup (round of play) has three possible outcomes: "player" (player has the higher score ...

. She was awarded the

Red Dot Design Award The Red Dot Design Award is a German international design prize awarded by Red Dot GmbH & Co. KG. There are prize categories for product design, brands and communication design, and design concept. Since 1955, designers and producers can apply ...

in 2007.

Life

Inga Sempé was born in 1968 as daughter of Mette Ivers, a Danish graphic artist and painter and the well-known French graphic artist

Jean-Jacques Sempé Jean-Jacques Sempé, usually known as Sempé (; 17 August 1932 – 11 August 2022), was a French cartoonist. He is known for the series of children's books he created with René Goscinny, ''Le Petit Nicolas'', and also for his poster-like illust ...

. She studied at the ''Ecole Nationale Superieure de Création Industrielle'' (ENSCI) in Paris and passed her final exams there in 1993. She is married to the designer

Ronan Bouroullec Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec (born 1971 and 1976) are brothers noted for their design work, which has been featured in publications and museums globally — and spans a wide range from tables and chairs to tableware, rugs, textile walls, office furn ...

and has two children. Inga Sempé lives and works in Paris.

Career

In 1994 she designed for the Australian designer

Marc Newson Marc Andrew Newson CBE RDI (born 20 October 1963) is an industrial designer who works in aircraft cabin design, product design, furniture design, jewellery, and clothing. His style uses smooth geometric lines, translucency, strength, transpar ...

, in 1997–1999 for the French designer

Andrée Putman Andrée Putman (23 December 1925 – 19 January 2013) was a French interior and product designer. She was the mother of Olivia Putman and of Cyrille Putman. Life and work Childhood and youth (1925–1944) Andrée Christine Aynard was bor ...

. From 2000 she worked for the Italian design companies Cappellini and Edra and at the same time founded her own company in Paris. She aims for sustainable, simple, but not

minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

objects. For her, function is important, and the material has to support it. "Sempé's lamps can be extended like accordions, the size of her suitcase

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...

for the manufacturer ''Via'', which can replace any hotel wardrobe, can be changed." For Italian, French and Scandinavian design companies she projects furniture and pictures as well as design objects, such as for Alessi,

, Tectona,

HAY Hay is grass, legumes, or other herbaceous plants that have been cut and dried to be stored for use as animal fodder, either for large grazing animals raised as livestock, such as cattle, horses, goats, and sheep, or for smaller domesticated ...

, LucePlan, Moustache and the American manufacturer Artecnica.

Works

Many of her lamps have lampshades which appear like fans and allow a variety of light and shade impressions. The pendant luminaire ''Plissé'' produced by Luceplan can be unfolded like an

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

, as the material is

pleat A pleat (plait in older English) is a type of fold formed by doubling fabric back upon itself and securing it in place. It is commonly used in clothing and upholstery to gather a wide piece of fabric to a narrower circumference. Pleats are cat ...

ed. In 2009 the lamp manufacturer ''Moustache'' launched the series of ''Vapeur'' pendants and table lamps with their characteristic lampshades made out of densely folded

Tyvek Tyvek () is a brand of synthetic flashspun high-density polyethylene fibers. The name "Tyvek" is a registered trademark of the American multinational chemical company DuPont, which discovered and commercialized Tyvek in the late 1950s and early ...

-fleece. This thin, papery material is either white or printed with very thin lines in delicate colours. The Swedish lamp manufacturer Wästberg offers a clip lamp by Inga Sempé which can also stand on the table or hang from the wall.

Expositions

In 2003 the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris consecrated an exposition to Inga Sempé.

Awards

In 2000/2001 she got a scholarship for the

Villa Medici The Villa Medici () is a Mannerist villa and an architectural complex with a garden contiguous with the larger Borghese gardens, on the Pincian Hill next to Trinità dei Monti in Rome, Italy. The Villa Medici, founded by Ferdinando I de' Medici, ...

, an institution of the

Académie de France à Rome The French Academy in Rome (french: Académie de France à Rome) is an Academy located in the Villa Medici, within the Villa Borghese, on the Pincio (Pincian Hill) in Rome, Italy. History The Academy was founded at the Palazzo Capranica in 1 ...

. In 2003 she received the 8000-

Euro The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...

-''Major Design Award of the City of Paris'', in 2007 the

for her upholstered furniture ''Moël''. In 2012 she was guest of honor of the

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

furniture fair ''Stockholm Furniture Fair & Northern Light Fair''.Andrea Eschbach: ''Designerin Inga Sempé. Beobachterin des Alltags.''

Neue Zürcher Zeitung The ''Neue Zürcher Zeitung'' (''NZZ''; "New Journal of Zürich") is a Swiss, German-language daily newspaper, published by NZZ Mediengruppe in Zürich. The paper was founded in 1780. It was described as having a reputation as a high-quality ne ...

, 3 May 2013, retrieved 15 October 2015.

References

Florian Siebeck talking with Inga Sempé: ''Frankreich ist ein furchtbares Land für Designer''

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung The ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung'' (; ''FAZ''; "''Frankfurt General Newspaper''") is a centre-right conservative-liberal and liberal-conservativeHans Magnus Enzensberger: Alter Wein in neuen Schläuchen' (in German). ''Deutschland Radio'', ...

, 4 August 2015, retrieved 15 October 2015.
S. A.: ''Designer des Monats: Inga Sempé. Inga Sempé glaubt nicht an Inspiration. Dennoch zählt die 39-Jährige zu den inspiriertesten Designerinnen unserer Zeit.''

Elle ''Elle'' (stylized ''ELLE'') is a worldwide women's magazine of French origin that offers a mix of fashion and beauty content, together with culture, society and lifestyle. The title means "she" or "her" in French. ''Elle'' is considered the w ...

, 9 September 2008, retrieved 15 October 2015.

External links

Website of Inga Sempé

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sempe, Inga French industrial designers Product designers Living people 1968 births Artists from Paris French people of Danish descent