Mathieu Lehanneur: 25 Years of Creation
The Most Comprehensive Monograph on the French Designer to Date, published by Phaidon

Phaidon releases this October 2026 Mathieu Lehanneur, a new monograph documenting 25 years of creation by the French designer. Developed with Lehanneur's direct involvement in the editorial direction and writing, the book brings together photography, archival materials, drawings, and essays to document the designer's multidisciplinary practice and offer a rare look at how his ideas take shape from initial research to finished works.

Known for moving between disciplines and experimenting with everything from natural phenomena to advanced technologies, Lehanneur has built a body of work that resists definition by any single category. His projects range from collectible and product design, artworks, usable high-tech devices, and large-scale installations, such as the Olympic torch and cauldron created for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Rather than simply presenting finished works, the monograph explores Lehanneur's universe, practice, and unexpected directions that shaped them.

Behind the Scenes

While design monographs often focus on completed projects, Mathieu Lehanneur gives equal attention to the work that happens before an idea takes its final form. Drawings, prototypes, material studies, and archival documents reveal the trial and error, research, and decisions behind some of the designer's most recognizable creations. Throughout the book, well-known projects appear alongside lesser-seen personal explorations. A chair might become a sculpture, an installation may take on the scale of a landscape, or a new technology will lead to an entirely unexpected application. Together, they reveal Lehanneur's approach to each project without a predetermined outcome, letting the process itself shape the final result.

25 Years of Work

From his earliest trials to his most recent commissions, Lehanneur has continually expanded his creative boundaries. Always beginning with a question about the impact it can have on our way of life, his approach appears in works as varied as his intervention in the Romanesque church in Melle, collectible design furniture, workplace interiors, and the Therapeutic Objects. Though different in scale and purpose, these projects share an interest in exploring new paths and rethinking the way objects and spaces are experienced. 

In the Designer's Words
 

"Twenty-five years of creation. I've searched a great deal. Sometimes, I've found what I was looking for. And every project has taken me somewhere new: from medicine to historic sites, from algae to marble, from technology to craftsmanship, from the smallest scale to the monumental. I've organized this book into ten chapters, each opening a door onto the most important things I've learned and everything I believe in today."

- Mathieu Lehanneur

 

Inside the Monograph
 

Organized into ten chapters, Mathieu Lehanneur features a foreword by Spencer Bailey, an essay by Constance Rubini and an interview with journalist and photographer Lucie Weeger. Additional texts are written by design historian Anne Bony. The book's cover features the movement of waves, a recurring motif throughout Lehanneur's work. Its constantly shifting surface reflects his longstanding interest in natural phenomena and the transformation of materials.

USA Monograph's Launch 
 

New York, Salon Art+Design, November 6.

Miami, Design Miami, December 3. 

 

Over the past twenty-five years, Mathieu Lehanneur has built a solid worldwide presence, earning recognition and accolades for works that challenge conventional distinctions between art and design. In 2018, he launched his eponymous brand, an implementation platform for his vision that balances artistic freedom with the business structure of an integrated production and distribution model, taking each project from initial sketch to final delivery and allowing every creation to unfold at its own pace and without compromise. He reshaped his practice around a holistic creative ecosystem, anchored by two key outposts: the Factory - headquarters, creative lab, workshop, and gallery - housed in a renovated century-old building spanning approximately 8,600 square feet in the outskirts of Paris, and the Pied-à-terre, a permanent exhibition space in New York that extends this ethos into the realm of experience: placed for encounters and conversation.

Mathieu Lehanneur's work is held in major public and private collections, including the Centre Pompidou and Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art - MoMA New York, and SFMOMA - San Francisco. Among his most widely recognized projects are the Olympic torch and cauldron created for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Press Contacts
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Sarah Hamon - sarah@s2hcommunication.com
Natalie Tomaselli - natalie@s2hcommunication.com