Staying in his studio in Munich, an old sawmill that he renovated with his father, himself a carpenter, it is under a polycarbonate roof that lets light invade the space that Stefan Diez and his team seem to revisit, with an infinite imagination, ordinary concepts.
Born in 1971 in Freising, Bavaria, into a family of four generations of carpenters, Stefan Diez grew up immersed in the art of wood and design, an important contribution that shaped and influenced his career as a talented designer.
After training in architecture, with the aim of becoming a cabinetmaker, and after having worked for a year in India, Mumbai and Poona, he returned to Germany and in 1996 undertook an industrial design course at the Academy of Arts in Stuttgart. He was employed as an assistant at Richard Sapper, who became his teacher, then at Konstantin Grcic, two big names in industrial design who have in common a style of simple, pure technical innovations, going to the essentials, all of this in a fine elegance. There is no better school and inspiration than learning from creators, and this is how Stefan Diez made the decision to create his own name by opening his studio in Munich, in 2003. At the same time, he taught at Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design, Germany, as well as the School of Industrial Design in Lund, Sweden. Diez was noticed very early and in 2002 received his first trophy, the Design Report Award, at the Salone Satellite, in Milan, with another designer, Christophe de la Fontaine. Since then, not a year has passed without one of his pieces receiving an award: best innovation in interior design, kitchen, living room or office equipment.
In a resolutely contemporary configuration with a retro touch, he transforms simple furniture into a work of art, whatever the materials used. Considered one of the most innovative german designers of his generation, he built an international reputation. Its straightforward, rational, simple but technical style, worked and applied, seduces many major brands of manufacturers, such as e15, Emu, Gandia Blasco, Moroso, Flötotto, Hay, Rosenthal, Thonet, Vibia and Wagner and Wilkhahn. He works on a multitude of different objects, chairs, tables, cutlery, pots, lights, shelves and even fireplaces, such as his Logaflame HWS116, for the Bauderus brand, which won the Focus Open award in 2014. Whatever material is used, wood, bamboo, metal or aluminum, the objects produced reflect the talent and expertise of a passionate professional.
The collection of the trio of colored chairs by the artistic director of e15, Farah Ebrahimi, This That Other (2013), expresses the philosophy of Diez which seeks to find the ultimate comfort in an apparent simplicity, while respecting a high standard of quality. Another technical feat, this time inspired by Japan, the Soba Bamboo furniture (2015), made with bamboo rolls left in their natural state, untreated and assembled only by a braided string, and whose color varies from green to gray to over time. His creations make everything everyday fun and original. It is this light-hearted daring that makes Diez’s work so remarkable.