Interior Design אדריכלות ישראלית Architecture of Israel #133 May 2023 | | 24 interiors anxiety reduces risk of making mistakes Bonnie Evans Eitan Cohen, a graduate of the Holon Institute of Technology and a member of the IIDIsraeli Association of Interior Designers, grew up in Jaffa, near Pardes Abu Seif in south Tel Aviv. The only child of a kindergarten teacher mother and a Division Manager in the Tel Aviv Municipality father, Cohen is one of the few interior designers that maintains an identifiable design line, the focal point of which is the use of almost obsessive leaflets, allowing the emphasis of selected design details via strong colors. Blurring the difference between his various works, this stylistic line is almost contradictory with his graphic tattoos covering every part of his body, on a free-space basis. Up until the Corona period Eitan operated from a tiny office in the Jaffa Flea Market, but over time, demand was increasing, and to maintain the growth he had to move to a larger office nearby in central Tel Aviv. The office was renovated two years ago to provide diverse planning services, focusing mainly on massively “rewritten” existing apartments. "I like to expose the building’s "bowels" when the irrelevant walls are demolished, allowing me, already at this point to imagine the new product, always with the emphasis on structural details - columns, beams and openings, letting the original plan survive while making the design less pretentious. I try to preserve their assimilated geometry and give them new clothing using materials, colors and lighting. Are all the apartments you plan in existing houses? No, there are also Contractor Apartments in which I define the use I imagine, never forgetting that every detail has its own energy while keeping a measured balance between the details and objects and, mainly, the people who will use them. To utter such a sentence you must be, not just a designer, but a sensitive person. Does this not prevent you from conducting economic relationships with your clients, who often assume that when they hire you they own you? Without sounding like a philanthropist, when I create, I feel I am engaged in giving, and I do not expect any special compensation for it. This is an important part of human relationships in general and life has taught me that some compensation always comes from surprising places. Sounds almost naive... do you manage to go to the grocery store with such a truth? You just touched on the intrinsic point of my creativity... I always look for the truth that lies in the material. The design world is currently suffering from lack of authenticity, mainly due to design software, which provides accessibility and almost cheap availability of inspiration. I always try to talk to the clients at eye level, and there is no difference between an accounting manager, a lawyer or kindergarten teacher - all of them, like me, are ultimately engaged in bringing home livelihood. And how does this give authenticity to your work? I make sure that there is always one clear design line. You can't put two "Divas" in one room, they will live in constant confrontation. Give an example. You obviously noticed that I often use black. And when a customer expresses his concerns I am not ashamed to demonstrate to him what the black pencil of makeup does to his wife's eye. And what does it do to your own "eye"? You’re probably hinting at my tattoos ...when asked why I am so heavily tattooed I reply that although I have good verbal capability, when the words end, I am planning a new tattoo. And at least emotionally, it complements what I wanted to say and did not find the words for. I have no doubt that it goes well with you personally, but how does the dialogue between you and you affect your design, if at all? In principle, what I am and who I am definitely affect my work and I explain to the clients that the fact that I am an anxious person, reduces the chance I would make planning mistakes. Such as? If I am not adequately familiar with the chemistry of a particular material, or its application technique, I will not use it. Of course there are many more options to be wrong, but time is the most loyal judge.
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