Designer and architect Saša J. Mächtig did not leave his mark on Slovenian design only with his objects, but also as a professor, mentor and personality. Read what people, who observe or are a part of his creative path, had to say on the author and his work.

I think I can honestly say that it was Saša J. Mächtig who, as mentor and professor, made me understand that industrial design is an international profession with zero tolerance for closed borders and closed hearts. 
It was not so much his words that convinced me but his actions; his charismatic and persuasive performances at numerous workshops and congresses abroad, to which he persistently kept on ‘hauling’ his students, left a great mark on me and helped me decide how to proceed with my career. We travelled to Italy, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, China, Taiwan, Canada. More than enough for us students to feel the pulse of world and to be able to find the place within it for the profession and to define our calling. Though it may seem so ‘non- Mächtig’ at times, I always base my work on parameters and foundations he passed on to me as a professor. Looking back on my first research studies under his guidance, I now know this was not always an easy task for him. Mächtig taught us students how the work is really done, be it golden cherries or modular window systems. There were several occasions when, boosted by prosciutto, olives and white bread he supplied, we were behind our drawing boards in his class long after others have already started their school holidays. And we loved every moment of it. Thank you Saša! 
Nika Zupanc, designer, former student of Prof. Mächtig

It’s safe to say that Professor Mächtig’s professional career was never opportunistic. On the contrary, from the beginning of his career he acted with a clear desire to bring high-quality design closer to consumers. When considering industrial design, he also placed great importance on the much neglected word “industrial”, without neglecting the creative or artistic side of the profession. Besides his deep knowledge of design profession, he also had something that was a taboo in Slovenian design world of the time – an understanding for production processes and for the rules of serial production. In this way, he made it possible for the first time in Slovenia that good design became accessible to a large number of people, that it really became “people’s” design, as we used to say. Saša Mächtig had the audacity to combine aestehtics with economics at a time when such combination was not popular in this part of the world, and he still has the audacity to it today when it’s unpopular again , when “industry” together with consumerism is being thrown out on the street again. One doesn’t have to be a great prophet to see who’s on the right side of history here and that Prof. Saša J. Mächtig has won himself a prominent and very specific role in the annals of Slovenian design as a man of strong and clear principles and uncompromising vision. 
Miloš Eber, Phillips

For Gorenje Group, design, innovation, sustainability in approaches and strategies have always represented an inalienable part of company and product development. These characteristics are also a common trait of Saša J. Mächtig’s design strategies. His kiosk became an icon of Slovenian design, and Mächtig himself almost a brand name. Mr. Mächtig is a story of success of superior design; an inspired designer who infuses traditional objects with something special, recognizable and distinctive. And I believe that it is of key importance for Slovenia as a state to build a new success story based on superior modern design.   
Franjo Bobinac, President of the Management Board and CEO, Gorenje, d.d.

Saša J. Mächtig was one of the key figures in introducing design courses at the University of Ljubljana, which meant that the Academy of Fine Arts became the Academy of Fine Arts and Design. As a result, the University was able to offer its students the first comprehensive graduate course in design in Slovenia. For this contribution, we have awarded Saša J. Mächtig the title of Professor Emeritus of University of Ljubljana. Furthermore, with his teachings and professional work Saša J. Mächtig has also achieved remarkable international success throughout his career, and this contributed to the establishment of relationships of University of Ljubljana with other established related institutions all over the world.  
Chancellor of the University of Ljubljana, Prof. Dr. Ivan Svetlik

I won’t drag on about Saša J. Mächtig for too long, because what’s really important is one of his statements that left a definite mark on me: “For a designer, there is no difference between a needle and a space shuttle.”
Miha Turšič, KSEVT, designer, former student of Prof. Mächtig

Kiosk K67 was a phenomenon. The K67 system pointed out that the commercialization of space is an important urban value, while at the same time it demonstrated not only its additive nature and adaptation to urban space but also the temporary nature, fragmentation, and if I may say so, segmentation of the unity – also of the ideology. Not only was the K67 system an invention in form but also in content, it was a live laboratory at the right time in a right place.  
Artist Marjetica Potrč on Kiosk K67; from catalogue interview

MoMA has a long tradition of collecting and exhibiting architecture as a replicable object of design but also a critical agent in the discourse of sustainability, architectural invention, materials research and urbanism: from the Frank Lloyd Wright’s folio of American system-built houses (1911-17), and Grete Schutte-Lihotzky’s Frankfurt Kitchen (1928), to models by Buckminster Fuller, Peter Cook’s 1964 designs for a Plug-in City, and several small-scale commissions produced specifically for our 2008 exhibition, Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling. The K67 Kiosk and Italy: The New Domestic Landscape are other important milestones within this trajectory of designs that consider the industrially produced individual unit as well as the urbanistic whole.
Juliet Kinchin, MoMA; from catalogue interview

The curator Maja Vardjan speaks of a research process that will continue beyond this exhibition. She organized this process along the following line: systems – structures – strategies, a line followed by other participating researchers as well. It is a line that demonstrates all by itself the rationale behind my pursuit of inter/multi/transdisciplinarity, the kind I was taught by my mentor and teacher Edvard Ravnikar from the very beginning of my studies. From then on, I perceived my work as being a multi-layered intertwined process. This is why there is such complexity of interest in it, why it spans between architecture and design, between professional practice and theory, between the personal and the public, so that at the end, to quote Branzi, the outcome is a delight, not in end products but in the actions of the creative process, not so much in results as in processes I had the opportunity to study and research while working with my students.
Saša J. Mächtig on the need for multidisciplinarity

To think about and try to characterize my friend Saša Mächtig is as pleasurable as it is complex, as difficult as trying to reach out and touch a cloud with its fuzzy edges as it is to describe all of his intellectual interests and creative talents.  He is as multidisciplinary as a person as are his many projects, which, yes, are clear and rational, to be sure, but also based in a uniquely wonderful love of humanity and the public space.

In the spirited debates about design that we still engage in, he reveals the special character of that tiny group of architect/industrial designer/academic/bon-vivants who populate this planet and who in a strong sense look out for each other as they bring to life an attitude about human life to their students.  Mächtig should be very proud of the influence he has had on so many lucky protégé(e)s and close friends in European academic circles, and of course in the Slovenian design space.  I greatly admired his unrelenting energy, a beautiful obsession really, to bring notoriety and success to both the former and newly emerging Republics, to fire up manufacturers to innovate, to inspire consumers to demand better, and to show the public what was possible in the street environment of daily life.  I could feel the spirits of Ravnikar and Plečnik through Saša’s work, and certainly through his many stories; indeed I envied his rich life in university, his travels, even his struggles, to give meaning to design in the context of such a special country that I had the honor to inhabit for a part of my own life. He called me a “dreamer” on many occasions, first as critique, and later as a warm compliment. During a flight together to a conference, when we were both literally seated “in the clouds”, I realized that this was also a projection of his own personality, since it’s pretty clear that a designer with these gifts, with this dedication to students and the profession, with a poetic overview of life Earth and the complexities therein, cannot live entirely “on the ground”.  Congratulations, Saša Mächtig, on this exhibition, and on the collection, publication and celebration of your impressive body of work…and of you!
Steve Diskin, PhD (architect/designer/colleague in Ljubljana 2002-2010)

Designer, architect and professor Saša J. Mächtig is without a doubt one of the most prominent figures in Slovenian industrial design. His strong integration into international environment is reflected in his innovative approach to professional work as well as teaching. Since the beginning of his creative career, he has researched new systems, materials and production procedures, a process that is most visible in his most complex works like Kiosk K67 and Evropa where he applies his industrial mindset and modular forms to resolve architectural challenges.
Kaja Antlej, PhD, researcher, former student of Prof. Mächtig

His friends call him Saš, while in public he is known as Saša J. Mächtig, Professor Emeritus and a lifetime educator. He is a man who, over time and space, in all areas of his activities, be it architecture, design, international expertise or education, pushed the limits of what was then known, understood or possible far beyond the imaginable, in a manner attempted by no one before him – not even Kralj or Plečnik. Such people are extremely rare. People whose visions go beyond those of anybody else, who can combine opportunities, experience, know-how, people and technologies in a way that many fail to even grasp. People who are able to make use of the time they live in for their opportunities, for the well-being of the world and for each individual living in it. To be able to do this, one has to be passionate, courageous, sensible, ingenious, audacious, stuborn and persistent, and has to have high goals, discipline, as well as respect, humanity and heart. And this is something that Saša J. Mächtig is and has. 
Dr. Helena Šuštar, Aalto University, Department of Design

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