James Irvine

England

James Irvine was born in London December 1958, and graduated in design at Kingston Polytechnic Design School London (1978-81 BA (Des) and The Royal College of Art for post graduate studies (1981 - 84 MA (Des) RCA). In 1984 he moved to Milan, Italy. From 1984 to 1992 he was a design consultant for Olivetti design studio Milan designing industrial products under the direction of Michele De Lucchi and Ettore Sottsass. In 1987, for a cultural exchange organised by Olivetti, he worked for one year at the Toshiba Design Centre in Tokyo making design research for industrial products. Returned to Milan in 1988 and opened private design studio. Clients included Cappellini, CBI, BRF and SCP. From 1993 to 1997 in parallel to private studio, was a partner of Sottsass Associati Milan and was responsible for the industrial design group. In 1993 he had his first personal exhibition at the Royal College of Art Stockholm and in 1999 a retrospective of his more recent works was shown at Asplund Stockholm. In 1999 he completed the design of the new city bus for the Hannover transport system ‹stra. 131 buses have been built by Mercedes Benz. Today his design studio in Milan is working with various internationally renowned companies including Artemide, B&B Italia, WMF, Alfi, Magis, Whirlpool, Arabia, Mabeg and Canon Japan.