Creating with longevity in mind

0:11Hello and welcome to The Entrepreneurs on Monocle Radio, the show all about inspiring people, innovative companies and fresh ideas in global business. Today's episode is all about timeless design built to be enjoyed for generations. First, we'll head to Barcelona to hear from the CEO of a cultural landmark that continues to inspire more than a century after its creation. For us, it's like working on the Formula One of the museums, because we really need to pay a lot of attention in all details, because every centimeter, millimeter matters at Casa Badió. Then we shift to contemporary design, with the founder of a Copenhagen-based furniture maker whose adaptable minimalist pieces are built to evolve with us over time.

0:53What you need when you're young and just moving in with your partner is maybe not what you need when you have two kids and a bigger house, but how can that piece of furniture change with you so that you actually don't have to change it, but it can stay with you? This is The Entrepreneurs with me, Tom Edwards.

1:16You're listening to The Entrepreneurs. Gary Gauthier is the CEO of Casa Batillo, a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of Anthony Gaudi's most celebrated works. Now a major Barcelona landmark, the building draws over a million visitors a year. Though when his family bought it in the 1990s, it was in a decidedly poor condition. His mother, Marta, led the restoration, with more than€20 million invested since 2018 to restore its iconic spaces. Today, Gary continues that spirit of innovation at Casabatio, balancing tradition with new ideas to enhance the visitor experience. I caught up with him to discuss the preservation of heritage using technology to enhance visits and why he's not a fan of titles like CEO.

2:03Long ago, I felt that I was, in many occasions, the only one that I was identifying things that could have been done better or things that were wrong within Cazabatio. Because you have a title that states that you are in charge of the web, that you are in charge of the design, the maintenance, and so forth. And I was the only one that had no charge or have the CEO title that is wider. So when you remove that from everybody's head or chair and you put the purpose in the middle of it, everybody stands for everything. And you move from having one CEO that takes care of a wider perspective to having everybody with a CEO mindset.

2:52And this is very powerful. Well, yeah, that's incredible, Gary. And I guess that can be transformational, right? And it drills right down to the heart of hopefully what our conversation is going to be about. You said the word there, the purpose. Let's take a step back. I'm sure lots of our listeners, of course, you know, if they are familiar with Catalonia, if they're visitors often to Barcelona, they'll know the sites about which you speak. But we have a global audience for the uninitiated. Tell us what the purpose is of this organization of which you are but one part, the leading part, perhaps.

3:24What's the purpose? What does it come down to? So Casabagio, for the ones that don't know us, it's a building built, designed and created by Antoni Gaudí, the famous architect. It's a building that has a century. It was created in 1906. It's somehow his masterpiece because he had absolutely freedom by the family that asked him to build a building. and it was at his, let's say, great moment of his career. It was one of his latest last works. It's outstanding from many perspectives. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site at the beginning of this century, of this, sorry, of this cycle in 2005.

4:10The purpose of this building, of this enterprise, is to make people happy through art. So that's the core of our purpose. then we have a lot of ways to implement it. We have a vision, which is to be extremely innovative in all what we do. Well, yeah, and it's interesting, you talked there about this sort of happiness. And I can't remember whether I heard you say this in an interview or whether I read it somewhere, reported of your remarks, Gary, but you talked about Casa Batia being Gaudi's happiest work. Can you tell me what exactly you meant by that? You've alluded to it already, but unpack that for me in a bit more detail.

4:45You know, architect is a profession when you can either work for others or work for yourself. So you can have a project that has been delivered to you by a customer and he wants a specific thing. So you will be willing to provide, in that case, a design that meets a specific request. Whereas when you're given absolute freedom to create, the power, the creativeness of the architect can write better. And that happened at Casa Baggio because of two reasons. First one is because the family, the Baggio family, that asked Anthony Gaudí, the renowned and famous architect by that time, to build a home for them, gave him absolute freedom in what to do.

5:39and that's the main and most important thing why Casabagio is one of the happiest if not the happiest work of Anthony Gaudi second one is because Gaudi was in a very special moment he was at the very mid end of his career he only did one work after that and then he retired at the Sagrada Familia and that was really a place and a building where you can feel and see in every single corner the richness of his proposals. Well, let's talk about that reimagining, because one of the things I find absolutely fascinating, and I know this speaks to your own personal background, exploring the cutting edge of so many new technologies, you know, from PMR, augmented reality, nanotechnology, AI, etc.

6:23It's the way that you have harnessed and your team harnesses innovation to shed new light and optimize this incredible resource. At the risk of asking you, Gary, an impossible question, what do you think the great man would have made about the way that you've integrated these new technologies? We know that they're used now in the ongoing work on Sagrada Familia, for example, but in terms of how you amplify the extraordinary work that he did, do you think he would embrace those technologies, be as excited by them as you are? So Gaudi was a visionary. He invented a lot of architectural techniques that he used on his projects.

7:00I don't think Gaudí ever imagined that Casabadio will receive the affluence of visitors that we're gathering between 5 ,000 and 6 ,000 people per day. Because in that case, he would have designed the place differently. So Casabadio was not imagined to be a monument. It was designed to be a home. There's a lot of narrow corridors, doors, staircases that does not help us flow the large amount of people we tour every day inside the building, which makes Casa Badiou the one probably place in the world with more visitors per square meter. So there's many other places that receive more visitors per day than us.

7:51I'm not sure there's a place, a single place in the world, that hosts these amounts in such a tiny, small, and narrow place. Which, on the other hand, for us, is like working on the Formula One of the museums. Because we really need to pay a lot of attention in all details. Because every centimeter, millimeter matters at Casa Badiou. So we've got over 160 live cameras monitoring all what's going on on the building. We've got AI tracking movements. We've got over 20 real-time dashboards that monitors what visitors are doing, how they are interacting with content, where they are. We've got also many daily reports that help us improve every day with moving anything from a sign that is better understood with a different logo.

8:46And we're all day improving and paying attention on how to do better. And answering directly your question, I don't think ever Galdi thought about his artwork becoming such a monument. We at Casa Baggio understand innovation as the way to bring the best experience to our customers. It's an evolving trend that consumers, visitors or tourists, as you want to call them, they expect every day a better experience and technology help us get there. Absolutely. I think the great man would be, will he certainly be impressed? I don't know if he, as you say, whether he would have imagined it, but I think he would be excited if he could see how it's presented today.

9:30Just briefly on that point, Gary, and slightly as an aside, listen, in a sense, you describe Casabadio there. In a microcosm, it manifests some of the challenges that Barcelona as a city more broadly faces, which is that in a pretty small area, a lot of people want to go there because of the obvious, the manifest wonders that are there to behold. What's your take on this idea that actually there are too many people? Obviously, it's a real hot topic, isn't it, where you are, But presumably you love to welcome this number of guests. Is it about striking a balance? How does one decide the right pathway when there's a resource which is scarce and people understandably want to have their access to it?

10:09How do you strike that balance? That's a very broad question. I don't think Barcelona is the only one facing this issue. If you have a look at the amount of visit of people in the world traveling, taking planes and getting their passports, It's increasing year every year besides COVID break. So we can expect all cities to keep growing. Obviously, Barcelona is on the very top tier of places to be visited in the world. I think Spain is, if not the first or second country in the world with more visitors. And yeah, we're facing a lot of inbound of people from all parts of the world. Barcelona is doing a great job in opening the city, in not concentrating all the assets in specific venues or streets.

10:55So it's doing a great job in making the city playful and enjoyable, both for tourism but also for the citizens, as me, as myself. At Casa Badio, we are applying a lot of measures to normalize the flow of visitors. We're using dynamic pricing to offer cheaper access to the building where we expect less demand. We're opening night products to be able to engage with audiences that are not that much related to culture, but still want to see this highlight, this monument, because it's a massive place in Barcelona. So we're offering other alternatives to visit it. We're playing with contents that relate to specific targets, such as specific visit for kids, specific visit for architects.

11:45We're now working on an app that we're very excited with because it will enable us to design specific custom real-time visits for every single user that wants it. So, yeah, I get innovation is at the core of this look or this interpretation of how you have to manage both Barcelona, their citizens, and Casabaglia, their visitors. Yeah, and again, we come back to this idea of innovation, something that's at the forefront of your whole career, really, Gary Wright, and certainly, of course, at your work currently with Casavadio. And tell me to that point then, Gary, what are you most excited about as we look through 2025 and beyond?

12:26I guess we need to watch outright for how you are integrating ever more of these technologies. You mentioned the app, other innovations, some really exciting artistic collaborations. We know already, of course, that the institutions partnered with the likes of Refikana, Dolph, Fia Crespo before. You have a really exciting Italian contemporary artist with whom you're partnering, I think, very soon. What are you most excited about? Is it those programs? Is it about where technology can take you? Are you most excited by the unknowable advances that you're going to keep making? What kind of gets you springing out of bed in the morning, Gary?

13:00So being a UNESCO heritage site requires that we must guarantee that we preserve and diffuse the monument properly. So we spend a lot of time recovering, restoring, and taking care of this little geode. On the other hand, the diffusion of the monument stands for what we call marketing approach. Long ago, let's say 5 to 10 years ago, we were not where we are right now at Casa Baggio. And by that time, our view was to become the best monument or museum in the world. There's not a specific prize or recognition for that title. The title doesn't even exist. But by setting this note and sharing it with all the team, we all began to work on how we should reimagine Casabarjo's proposal in order to be in the very top tier in what museums and monuments around the world are about.

14:01We invested over 30 million euros restoring and technology to bring the visit of Casa Badio to the highest point we could ever imagine. So far, three years after the opening, we've gathered over 40 international awards and prizes that stands for the best monument in the world, the best soundtrack in a monument, the most immersive spaces, the most engaging experience in the cultural sector, and so forth. So yeah, there is not a title, there's not an Oscar for what we were looking to achieve, but we've gathered a lot of good records on the track. And here's where we are now. We have a monument that is in his, let's say, prettiest moment, because it's all restored, it's all shiny.

14:54Our customers reflect on that. We have an NPS that is astonishing. We're over 70 points in mostly all the products we launched. and yet the vision for the coming years is to keep doing that widely. And the way of doing that widely, we found that opening the doors of Casavadio to new or emerging artists to enable them to think, get inspired and create their art based on the imaginary that Gaudi designed and left at Casavadio is an excellent way to spread the Casabatio art away. And we've done that through mapping projections with what you said with Davide Cuellola is the very last artist that we're working on.

15:48And yeah, that's very fascinating because the scope of work that can lead us to is amazing. That was Gary Gauthier, the CEO of Casabatio. you can find out more by heading to kazabatio.es.

16:12Anastams is the CEO and co-founder of Merber, a Danish design brand that produces interior goods ranging from sofas to lamps. With a background in cabinet making, Anastams and his architect co-founder set out to build on Denmark's design legacy, crafting furniture that's easy to ship, simple to repair and adaptable to life's changing needs. Anna has stopped by Midori House on a recent trip to London to chat to Monocle's design editor, Nick Manese. Anna's began by talking about the start of the journey. The potential was just shared view on what we wanted to do, basically. I think when we started out, we were just good friends.

16:49Met at cabinet maker school, actually, with one of the architects, Martin, there. And then later on, Nick, who was also in the architect school. And I think, Of course, they bring a perspective of shape and form and design that's a little bit more, not only big scale, but also a little bit more, how do you say that, abstract. Where it's very specific, concrete, what you have in your hands as a cabinet maker. But that said... So you've got this contrast. Yeah, you've got that contrast. But I think what brought us together is also that the two other founders are also very hands-on. We've always been designing, you know, making stuff, finding the solutions, you know, along the way.

17:27And it's also part of our business today. We have a workshop just at the back of our office. So we can go there back and forth, prototype, find out those good solutions that you can only see when they materialize themselves. Because I think that's quite fascinating. I mean, obviously, you're making a physical product, and I think maybe now the temptation might be to do everything, I don't know, online, on AutoCAD, model it up digitally, and then actually have to wait a little bit to see the actual prototype. But you're actually making or testing your products right behind your office. We are. We are, yeah.

17:59In the courtyard behind our office, we have a small workshop where we are doing, yeah, we have a lot of woodworking machines, of course, 3D printers, laser cutters, all that stuff. But yeah, testing it out right away, finding out if that idea that's good on paper is also good in reality. I think, I mean, I think that's wonderful. But I've got to ask, so you've got this amazing hands-on approach you're bringing together, I guess maybe the abstract nature of perhaps architecture school with the hands-on nature of carpentry school. You're also setting up a furniture business or you set up a furniture business more than 10 years ago in a country that has furniture businesses that are hundreds of years old.

18:34I mean, why set up, And why try and maybe not compete, but why add something to this ecosystem? I think you're totally right. I think it is a fair question to ask. And I think part of it is because it's in our blood, right? We do have this long heritage of furniture making in Denmark and Scandinavia in general. And I think that part, you just carry on as the next generation, right? But we also wanted to do something a little bit new. I think we saw a potential for, you know, how could we bring Danish design forward? Thinking about design as more than just form follows function or more than just good looking or beautiful.

19:15But how could we bring something more into that equation? You know, when you talk about longevity in furniture making, you often talk about good quality materials and it's going to last forever. But I think you do not often talk about how do you design for longevity? How do you actually make a piece of furniture that's, for example, easy to repair, good for recycling? Hopefully that will never happen, right? But it does, we know. How do you make a piece of furniture that can change over the course of a lifetime? So what you need when you're young and just moving in with your partner is maybe not what you need when you have two kids and a bigger house.

19:54But how can that piece of furniture change with you so that you actually don't have to change it, but it can stay with you? So we've tried to do that. We made a bed that expandable that goes from 90 centimeters to 180, things like that so that you can kind of modify it to the life situation that you're in. So they were the things you identified that, I guess, make people want to hang on to things. It's repairability, the ability to evolve. What are there any other components or characteristics that you identified as things that really make people want to stick with something? Yeah, I think when we started out, this was the basic feeling that we had.

20:26We didn't have all the answers. I think we've always just had a basic kind of approach to JFDI. So do stuff, right? Try it out, find out how it works, and then modify along the way. And I think what we found out along the way was that this whole way of designing, as we do, always in a single piece or a single material, like only wood or only metal, and then also always designing in components, always component parts or parts that you can take apart, makes us think about construction in a different way. And somehow that takes away the tendency to run after fashion or trend because you kind of have a creative obstacle that's added there.

21:09And that makes the furniture interesting. So not only is, hopefully, other people can also see that, but we think our furniture is beautiful from afar, but it's also interesting when you come up close. Is that because there's a complexity brought in by the fact that you have to make it using very particular components and very particular materials? Exactly. And because it's, for example, with our shelving system, we put that together only with wedges. When you see it from afar, it's just, you know, sticks and shelves and it looks simple. And hopefully people can see the aesthetic beauty in that.

21:39But when you come close and you see, oh, it's actually put together like this, it's interesting. It reveals something that you didn't know before. It's like getting to know the furniture a little bit better. And then it also opens a whole lot of opportunities for you or possibilities. You can then actually, oh, if it's put together like this, I can actually build it into something different. I can actually move the shelf like I want to. I can make it wider instead of higher or whatever it might be. So in that way, it also gives you something extra. And I think that's maybe the defining detail that also kind of make you want to stick on or hold on to a piece of furniture, right?

22:13I think what's kind of fascinating here is it sounds like, you know, you've almost given yourself these constraints and they're maybe a little bit environmentally minded. there, you know, certainly, you know, intended to benefit the consumer, the end consumer, the person that's going to have the product. But by, I guess, building in these constraints, you've also actually almost forced yourself to develop a product that's maybe interesting and distinct and beautiful to look at. You know, these wedges, this shelving system you're talking about, it's gorgeous. So is that also, is that just a happy byproduct, I guess, is what I'm asking?

22:45Or was that also part of your thinking? I think they're interconnected. I don't think you can take them apart. And it's always been part of the way that we're thinking. So to be honest, maybe we didn't see all the advantages of designing like this from the beginning. Maybe some of them opened up along the way and showed themselves to us. But it's always been a way of kind of, maybe it's a generational thing. Maybe it's the way the world is moving. But the way of thinking about, okay, how can we actually make it easy to recycle? How can we make it easy to repair? We think it should be easier and cheaper to repair always than to go out and buy something new.

23:20How can we do that? And I think that the solution that we found there was the component-based approach. So this evolved. I know last year you launched a modular sofa. That's kind of an extension of this kind of perspective or this view on business. Yeah, definitely. And also the whole modularity, taking that further, trying to build something that you can change over time or can build bigger or whatever you need to. And then I guess also in terms of customer response, because it sounds like when you were initially building this company in 2014, you're maybe thinking about what you want as a consumer.

23:55You want things that you can repair, that you can fix, that will stand up to the test of time. You've got this vision. How did the consumers respond? What's been the response? Have you built relationships with customers over the years? Do you find people coming back for repairs? Tell us a little bit about that side of the business. We do that. We can see that it's used a lot, actually, that we have all the spare parts on our website, so you can easily buy them as a customer. And we can see that people do that. We can also see that, you know, when you talk to a lot of our customers, that they do come back and buy several different items.

24:23We do everything from small frames to sofas and shelving system, right? So there's definitely something there. But that being said, I think maybe we weren't too commercial, actually, when we started out. We were lucky that we hit some kind of nerve that people resonated with or that resonated with them. but it wasn't the thought from the beginning and maybe starting out as two architects and a cabinet maker like we talked about was one of those things where we're not always too strategical. You know, we made a bed a few years ago and there's not that many in our business that do beds as part of their portfolio and people are looking at it and saying, why do you do that?

25:01But it turned out to be a great success. So the first product we had was a frame and also again, why don't do a chair or a table? Well, because we had the idea and we really loved it and wanted to bring it out there. And sometimes you trip when you do that, but we've been lucky to somehow come up with some things that people actually... This almost feels like a frustrating business lesson. Essentially, what you're saying is we just did what we liked and it's turned out to be pretty good. A little bit, especially in the beginning. Of course, you grow along the way and you get a better feeling of people, the market, your customers.

25:32and you also get a lot of really great feedback when you're out there on fairs or in a shop or whatever it might be. So of course those things influence also over time and people will come to you and say, oh, why don't you do a mirror or why don't you do this? And of course that gets you thinking. And I think there's also something to be said about that product offering. Like you've got everything from, like you said, a frame for a picture or an artwork through to shelving all the way up to like kind of, make us what could potentially be quite a big modular sofa. Was that also intentional to have all these different points of, I guess, interaction with your customers?

26:09Definitely, definitely. And then it was a practical thing when we started out. As we said, it was a project where we didn't have a very clear business plan from day one or something like that. So we didn't have some investors to back us or anything like that. So what we had to do was to find the money in our own pockets and to start out doing something like that, well, you have to start small. So we started with some of the smaller designs. And as the business has grown and we've been able to do the other things, we've built them on. We always had a vision of doing big furniture also. And I really hope that one day we'll also do a house or a summer house or something like that.