FX AWARDS 2016: THE WINNERS
Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to Design
Winner: Alex McCuaig
Sponsored by Duravit
Thirty-four years of building MET Studio and the most surprising thing about those years to Alex McCuaig, founder and chairman of MET Studio, is the places they took him, and the people and cultures he encountered on the way.
Image: Gareth Gardner
He recalls sitting in the captain’s chair on the bridge of the QE2 as she sailed into Manhattan, and watching the early morning sunlight bounce off the Twin Towers and fill the bridge with a golden glow, and a few months later standing under her hull at the bottom of a huge dry dock in a German shipyard where she sat on timber blocks waiting for her biggest refit, planned and designed by MET.
Image: Gareth Gardner
Or climbing Nanhu Mountain in Taiwan with five Chinese sherpas for five days accompanied by a posse of designers, curators, and artists just so MET Studio could design the most authentic 3D visual image of the place for a new natural history museum.
‘And will I ever forget photographing three narcotics’ bosses giving thanks for another successful deal, in the tiny shrine of Jesus Malverde, their patron saint, while surrounded by policemen carrying pump shotguns and covered in black body armour that would not be out of place in a Batman movie. A crazy example of the lengths we went to design a drug-addiction centre in the small Mexican town of Culiacan,’ he recalls.
‘Thirty four years of so many unseen and unheard stories about MET Studio’s work are hidden between the lines we write, about the things we design,’ he adds.
‘To this day I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have worked and continue to work with so many extraordinary, talented people who have helped contribute to my success and the success of MET.
‘Success relies on a little luck, but mostly it comes from striving to be the very best that you can be for your clients. And I would say MET will continue to be defined in these terms.’
