Inspiration has an annoying tendency

Star architect Jordan Mozer @ Catch the inspiration

If you are a regular reader of my „Catch the Inspiration“ column“, you will know it: I have a passion for creative minds. But of what you maybe were not aware yet: I love hotels. Especially the ones that are done by creative minds. That‘s why I started a cooperation with Berlin based Design Hotels who would hook me up with their coolest hoteliers and designers.

That is how I met the Chicago based star architect Jordan Mozer who is famous for turning architectural projects into three-dimensional storytelling. His colorful signature design touched me when I was doing an interview with Christoph Strenger, the founder of Hamburg‘s well known Design Hotel „East“. 5 years ago, he had asked Jordan Mozer to develop a design for this hotel that would create a sense of Magical Realism, a feeling of discovery and mystery. So Jordan played with the scale, the scent and the architecture of the rooms to create surprise and anticipation. He told me that „East‘s architecture is irrational and emotional: it takes time to understand.“ Like  Asia, one of Jordan‘s beloved source of inspiration. „I was 15 years old when I first visited Asia. Everything was different. I come from Chicago, a very modern city entirely rebuilt after an enormous fire in 1871. Many things in Asia were ancient and mysterious. It was an adventure, a series of discoveries, a series of mysteries that I am still trying to solve.“

sketch of the East by Jordan Mozer

I am very happy that, shortly after my stay at East hotel, the Design Hotels guys did connect with me Jordan Mozer and I took my chance to ask him about his personal way to „catch the inspiration“. Enjoy.

Jordan, How do you feel when inspiration hits you?
Inspiration is elusive sometimes: one cannot make it happen. When the idea arrives I feel excited, exuberant a little high. At the same time there is some anxiety that pushes one forward, a sense of urgency like one has at the beginning of a journey, the concern about taking something out of the mind and making it real.

Jordan Mozer, foto by his daughter

Where do you draw your inspiration from?
Inspiration is unpredictable and project-specific. The ideas may be triggered by the history of a site or a conversation with the client. Inspiration has an annoying tendency to be unpredictable and irrational, following the logic of a dream…. Sometimes the ideas come from imagining what music might look like, from a landscape or the forms in a coral reef 10 meters under the surface, from the form of a seed-pod or an electron microscope image….

The “Goose table” inspired by Hamburg’s Gänsemarkt, foto by Doug Snowe

How do you document inspiring material?
Usually with drawings and paintings augmented by notes, sometimes with a camera.

How do you put yourself into a creative mood?
Music changes my channel…

Thank you so much, Jordan.