Doshi Levien

Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien met as design students at London’s Royal College of Art in 1995. Nipa, who was born in Mumbai and raised in Delhi, recalls being shaped by an appreciation for modernist design ideals and the importance of craft, while Jonathan, who was trained in fine cabinetmaking and industrial design, spent much of his childhood learning how things are made in his family’s factory in Scotland. Though somewhat opposing, this plurality of influences and cultural experiences proved a great force. Today, their celebrated studio Doshi Levien is defined by a hybridised mindset bringing technology, craftsmanship and industrial techniques to the fore across furniture, textiles and product design. Over the course of their shared lives and careers, the pair have “created a universe” for themselves in London. Their studio of 14 years is a former 19th-century furniture workshop on Columbia Road in the East End, where their small team makes models, sketches and mixes colours across the studio, colour lab and gallery space. Given Nipa and Jonathan’s diverse upbringings and propensities, it is unsurprising to see cross-cultural perspectives continually emerge in their work. My World, one of their earliest commissions from the British Council served as a manifesto in their formative years. “We wanted to bring different worlds together in our work – not as an aesthetic language but more as a philosophical approach and a way to consider globalisation as a positive process of the exchange of cultures, values, materials and production methods,” This cross-cultural lens has become an unwavering undertone of the studio’s approach, In the past two decades, guiding their work for Moroso, Cappellini, Hay, Kettal, Nanimarquina, B&B Italia, Arper, for prestigious international museums and cultural institutions (notably Sevres – Cité de la Céramique and The Grand Hornu), and for their Paris-based gallery: Galerie Kreo. Much like the foundations of Nipa and Jonathan’s partnership, the plurality of the Doshi Levien portfolio is significant. It is rich, not solely because of the pair’s wide-reaching strengths in the field of design, from colour and textiles to form and structure but because there is a generous dose of each of them in every project. It is their contrasting cultural experiences and creative attitudes