ECAL at Galerie Kreo, Paris

When making our annual edit of game-changing talent for our Graduate Directory, one school whose students consistently make the grade is ECAL. The Lausanne-based college’s list of tutors and alumni reads like a Who’s Who of design - the Bouroullec brothers, Alexis Georgacopoulos and Delphine Frey, to name just a few. So it’s no surprise that Paris’ Galerie Kreo should be keeping it firmly in its sights.
’A New Generation of Leading Lights’ is the gallery’s second exhibition devoted to ECAL - the first kicking off in 2005, under the curation of Ronan Bouroullec. This time, it is showing a mix of lighting by everyone from current students and recent graduates to established names like Fabien Cappello and tutor Augustin Scott de Martinville (of Big-Game).
The show is Galerie Kreo’s tribute to Pierre Keller and his visionary decade as ECAL director, during which he has shaped it into one of the world’s best design schools. Much of the students’ success is down to the access they are given to the industry. ’ECAL puts them in close contact with a huge network of professionals,’ says the gallery’s Sara Guedj. ’It also gives them all the tools to create cutting edge design.’
Galerie Kreo has selected works that are the most emblematic of the schools recent output, be it popular pieces, such as Michel Charlot’s ’Mold’ lamp from 2009, or specially commissioned new works from the likes of Adrien Rivero and new ECAL director Alexis Georgacopoulos. Antenna-shaped lights, shades fashioned from concrete, a machined aluminium pod - the vastly different products on show certainly prove that ECAL fosters individual thinking.