Audi at Design Miami/Basel 2014: Konstantin Grcic designs the “TT Pavilion”

The TT Pavilion is an accessible element that can be constructed as a free-standing object at any site. Grcic was inspired by the Audi TT. “For me, the Audi TT is a car that you drive from the city out into the countryside. I respond to this experience with a pavilion concept that stands as a point of destination at a remote site,” the designer said. Mounted on pylons, the pavilion can easily be set up in uncertain terrain. The construction uses the modern techniques of prefabricated home construction. The seven original tailgate doors of the Audi TT are a distinctive feature of the pavilion that lends it a futuristic appearance. For Grcic, a car is like a house. “Cars are industrially produced, mobile pieces of architecture. They not only offer protection but also are perfectly equipped functional spaces for working, communicating, eating and relaxing.”

For Audi, collaboration with designers from other disciplines is of utmost importance. “Audi is very close to industrial design, since the design of our cars is always an expression of technology,” explained Marc Lichte, Chief Designer at Audi. “With his designs, Grcic places functionality at the center and lends everyday products a surprisingly distinct design.”

In collaboration with Audi, Grcic was given a free hand and selected the Audi TT as his source of inspiration. “The Audi TT is a very iconic car in my view, and therefore especially interesting,” Grcic explained. With its rigorously geometric and formally coherent design language, the very first TT from 1998 embodied a concept from the start: radical in design, it was a car that wanted to be driven. Audi is blazing a trail with the new TT while also retaining the timeless beauty of the original.

In addition to the Audi TT, Grcic also drew inspiration from the architectural designs of French designer Jean Prouvé (1901-1984). In the 1950s Prouvé developed various types of prefabricated houses, which were designed above all to be quickly assembled. Among his best known houses was the “Maison Tropicale.” Galerie Patrick Seguin exhibited the “Maison Demontable 8×8” back in 2013 at Design Miami.

The TT Pavilion can be viewed together with the new Audi TT Coupé and its virtual Audi Cockpit from June 17-22 at Design Miami/Basel. The exhibit is considered the most important forum for classic and contemporary avant-garde design. Design and engineering are traditional elements of Audi’s brand core.

Audi has been the exclusive automotive sponsor of Design Miami since 2006. In recent years Audi has worked with international designers and architects such as Tom Dixon, Moritz Waldemeyer, Bjarke Ingels, Clemens Weisshaar and Reed Kram. Audi is also the sponsor of “Konstantin Grcic – Panorama,” the biggest individual exhibition to date for Grcic, which is being presented by the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein until September 14, 2014.

Konstantin Grcic, born in 1965, first trained as a cabinetmaker at the British John Makepeace School and began studying industrial design in 1988 at the Royal College of Art in London.  He began his career with Jasper Morrison and in 1991 founded his own design studio in Munich, KGID (Konstantin Grcic Industrial Design).  Since then his designs have distinguished such brands as Authentics, Flos, Magis, Vitra, ClassiCon, Plank, Laufen and Muji.  Many of his works are exhibited by prominent international design museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Grcic was selected “Designer of the Year” in the United States at Design Miami/2010.