IN PRAISE OF IRON :

Of everything that I have done and presented, I believe that iron is the least well understood of all products. However, elegance never derives only from good design, it also comes from the working of the iron, and this aspect seems to be totally unknown. There is the iron that is folded and cut, and that is what we see all around us, but there is also iron that is heated until red-hot, so that it can be wrought, beaten, given a new impetus that suddenly takes it into the plant world ... and the work is totally different, and so is the result. Believe me, when it comes to iron, I was born hard to please, because I was born in Brussels, city of Victor Horta, where not only the skilful scrolls of iron created by the master naturally form part of the images that made me, but also where Art Nouveau left us so many more modest yet charming examples when you turn into a very ordinary street. So I know the difference between apples and oranges, and I don’t believe the moon is made of green cheese, so I do insist that there is iron, and then there is iron.