julius fest

growing up in an architect's household meant form, function, and material were constant companions. my parents shared a studio, a fascination and at times an obsession with design. i absorbed it without choosing to.

i tried to move away from it. i studied mechanical engineering, then enrolled in physics. somewhere between the two i asked myself a very gen-z question: do i want to work as an engineer or physicist, or do i just like the idea of being one?

what i actually wanted was always closer to the material itself. its properties, its physicality, the way things are made and why. mechanics and material honesty didn't leave me alone. i missed experimenting with my hands, not only through a screen. so i dropped physics to study art.

i've always made things. carved wood, sewn, built. now i had the time to develop that seriously. through trying, failing, and trying again i built a broad set of skills, and on the way, a few methods that are entirely my own.

my practice is rooted in the physicality of materials. what a material wants to do. where it resists. how far it can be pushed before it becomes something else. control and the deliberate loss of it. letting the material be the protagonist. minimalist and brutalist principles.

in addition to that, when i see a problem. or a lack of solutions in my surroundings or in my own work, the engineer in me takes charge. the search for the best, simplest, most elegant solution begins.

and sometimes there are custom problems that demand solutions.