the world is not enough for her

financial times deutschland
inside business
by britta nagel, hamburg 04 july 2003

101 persons you should keep in mind

normally yasmine mahmoudiehs speciality lays in the interior design of hotels. but since the german-iranien designer developed parts of the interior of the new airbus a380 she gets attention of the key-persons of the airlines. because with mahmoudieh the form follows the function but keeps staying warm and elegant.

between croissant and café latte at the hamburg ‘literaturcafé’ yasmine mahmoudieh explains how she was recently flatterd by the key-persons of the international airlines. as one of the interior architects of the new a380 she was giving a presentation which elated the managers of airbus, boeing and virgin airlines so much that they came to the speakers desk spontanuously to show her their interest in a collaboration. with her own enthusiasm she presented her version of better flying, spoke of conference séparées for business travellers and play corners for children as well as of treadmills for health aware long flight travellers.

the designer does not have a lack of modesty. and she should not: one cannot progress in this branche that is living on wellplaced house advertising with demourness. similar to the architects you need to do your walking. especially since the inflationally used and unprotected job description of a designer has lost its respectability. a problem that does not concern yasmine mahmoudieh. ralph wiegmann, manager of if (industrie forum) design praises: ‘she works highly professional.’ he admires especially the ‘barrier free way of planning the interior of hotels’ with the specialist of hotel design. mahmoudieh is therefore an exception because she has established a name in germany and internationally as one of the few successful woman designers.

the german-iranien designer was born in hamburg and was already a global player before the word was ‘in’. study of art history in florence, architecture and interior architecture in geneva, san francisco and los angeles, where she was having her own studio for more than 10 years. teacher at the hotel school in lausanne – the world is not enough for yasmine mahmoudieh.

quietly and precise is the way of speaking of the 41 year old and so fast as if she would just be passing through on one of her travels and was afraid to miss the next flight. if she is not travelling to one of her clients she commutes between her offices in london, berlin and barcelona, since one year also often together with her little daughter fariba and her au-pair.

mahmoudiehs work for hotels as for example for the hamburg four seasons hotel and the kempinski hotel in moscow and the recently with the international coredesign award presented hotel for disabled in rheinsberg are the logical explenation of her restlessness. the daughter of a merchant who liked to rearrange the living room furniture once in a while when her parents were away, felt herself as a frequent flyer early ‘personally affronted by the stereotypic facelessness of most of the hotels’.

different from other designers mahmoudieh does not mark her rooms by the egocentric will to be undistiguishable. contrary her rooms often show chameleon like features because they melt into their surroundings.

the best example for this is the radisson sas hotel in copenhagen, an hommage to the designer arne jacobsen which is stilistisch very exact. ‘everybody thought that a scandinavian architect had designed this’, says mahmoudieh and is happy about this reaction which she takes as a compliment for her philosophy to let a good hotel reflect the culture of the country. ‘different from other so called star designer i do not always keep the same style. but i always have the same principles’, she rounds up her credo. it is not enough for her to create only beautiful and valuable projects. the main intention of modern architecure ‘form follows function’ must also apply to design. the fact that her projects do not show the coldness of the classic modern architecture relays on the mahmoudieh-typical warm colours and woods and the innovative lighting concepts with a variety of direct and indirect lighting which provide a warm atmosphere.

for private clients she worked only at the beginning of her career in california and that with increasing rejection. the final point she describes with some amusement was when she worked on a villa of a hollywood producer and got inbetween fronts of a domestic riot about stylistic elements. today she has the privilege to reject more projects than she accepts. this only functions because she is no ‘megaoffice’. yasmine mahmoudieh intentionally does not employ more than 17 designers. sometimes she also rejects projects for financial reasons. ‘it happens sometimes that a client imagines a rolls royce but wants to pay only for a bmw’, she says. she also does not compromise on her creative freedom:’i do not let anybody dictate me what i have to do’. the designer cannot imagene to stop working in her profession sometime. her idol is anna castelli the very active grand dame of italien design. she is 85.