Paris is French, Munich is German, Milan is Italian . . . but, when it comes to design, London is much more than British. James MacKintosh reports on the decision by Nissan to make the city its design headquarters.
Indra Mistry has just started one of the most appealing jobs around. As a "trend spotter" for Nissan he shops for a living - occasionally browsing magazines or attending catwalk shows. "People say: 'Oh, you just go shopping all day'," he says with a smile. "And, yes, I do."
Mistry can thank London's growing reputation as an international cultural melting pot for his new job. Nissan decided that its former base in Munich was too staid a background for today's models and on March 1st moves into new design headquarters, a former British Rail service depot near Paddington.
Nissan joins Ford, the world's number two carmaker, in choosing London, bolstering the city's growing reputation for car design. The Japanese marque considered the south of France - where Toyota has its European design HQ - Paris, Berlin, Barcelona and Birmingham, but London won thanks to its concentration of creative industries.
"London is more than the design capital of Britain," says Shiro Nakamura, design head for Nissan Europe. "There are many designers in architecture, fashion or product design. It's very stimulating and also there is a lot of talent."
"Cultural diversity is extremely important," says Henrik Fisker, creative director of Ford's Ingeni centre in Soho and Aston Martin head of design. "You can't really have a design centre in every country in the world, but you still need to have an input from their culture."
The design centres are propelling back on the map for carmakers. No auto companies have headquarters in the city, and the last car-assembly plants nearby, at Dagenham to the east and Luton to the north, shut last year.
As cars increasingly become fashion items, however, designers would rather be plugged into the latest trends than sitting near their engineering departments. This, according to Ford, gives London a huge advantage.
"On the way to work you pass through areas where you have the left-over hippies, then trend-setters, then you might cross over Bond Street and high fashion," says Fisker, who is Danish. "You're living and breathing it, which is much more efficient than sending designers to do a study for a couple of months.
"It's great to be in Milan, but it's very Italian. Munich is very German and Paris is very French. London is British, but it's also international. You can go into a shop here and feel that you speak better English than the person who is serving you."
Londoners, stuck in some of Europe's worst traffic and shortly to face a £5-a-day congestion charge for driving into the centre, could be forgiven if they are surprised at the choice of city. Given that MG Rover is the only surviving British-owned mass car maker, they might also be surprised by the number of British and British-trained designers holding senior posts at carmakers.
Much of this success is down to the acclaimed car design course at London's Royal College of Art. It has churned out large numbers of black-clad, polo-necked designers, with Martin Smith, director of design at German carmaker Opel, one high-profile alumnus.
Dale Harrow, head of vehicle design at the RCA, says London's success in attracting Nissan and Ford, as well as the decision by BMW to design its new Rolls-Royce near Marble Arch, should be self-reinforcing as a community of designers builds up. It could also help to produce cars more appropriate for the urban environment as designers struggle through traffic to get to their offices, rather than cruising in on the empty autobahns to Munich.
"When you aren't faced with these transport issues you can get completely separated from the reality for ordinary people around the city," says Harrow. "That's how you end up with so many 1,000-hp supercar designs."
Mistry and 50 other Nissan design specialists move into Nissan's newly decorated Rotunda building next month. Being close to Paddington is good for national and international links, but the proximity to trendy Little Venice is likely to be just as important for recruitment.
"If you want to find the best designers and recruit them you have got to be based in a happening place," says Harrow. He's backed up by Nissan's Nakamura, who says young people in particular are excited about working in London. "Munich is a nice city, but it's not as exciting as London. Design is very dependent on attracting talent."
Both Ford and Nissan have gone out of their way to make their offices appealing to their workers. As Nissan's offices near completion, the expensive Aeron chairs, "chill-out zone" and picture window overlooking the vehicle display area are part of the no-expense spared renovation of the former British Rail depot. Even the graffiti, left over from the building's former popularity with illegal ravers, has been retained behind the wall panels, and could be displayed in future.
Despite all this, London has a long way to go before it catches up with California for car design. The RCA is gaining a reputation to rival the Pasadena Art Centre College of Design, but a presence on the US west coast is "almost a required entry ticket" to the industry, Nakamura says. He believes few other carmakers will set up rival London studios complete with the ability to cut full-size clay models, as Nissan has. Even Ford relies on sending data to milling machines at its studios outside London.
"I don't think many manufacturers will follow us to London," says Nakamura. "It's not easy to find places like the Rotunda, and it's not inexpensive."
- Financial Times