Dear Eugene : You created the atmosphere of the Butcher's Bar café using the “ least design ” — the existing butcher's shop as abackdrop for the interior of the café. How did youcometo this decision ? What were your motivations ? Did you sense that you were taking a risk ?
Dear Kim : The ultimate challenge for me is to reinvent the famihar space — so people pay attention to something that would have previously been ignored. I believe in the richness of the world, not designers’ portfolios. Designers impose standards and uniform solutions on things that deserve to be unique, resulting in somekind of generic identity in different locations. Newis not always better. And we are not any smarter than the previous generation. Uniqueness has been replaced by uniformity.
– " Doing Nothing, ” Kim Levine, Dot Dot Dot #2, 2001
Eugene Menard, Photograph of Butcher's bar, London EC1, 2001, photographic print, 31 x 20.8 cm