The Ultimate Object: Hamed Gholami Reimagines the Violin

For Hamed Gholami, design isn’t just a way to solve problems—it’s a way to ask better questions. Trained in both classical music and industrial design, Gholami moves fluidly between disciplines, creating objects that blur the boundaries between engineering, sculpture and sound. His latest project, The Ultimate Object, is a striking reimagination of the violin—foldable, made of carbon fiber, and built to perform outdoors without sacrificing acoustic richness. But it’s also something more: a meditation on perfection, tradition, and what it means to create with care. In conversation with Newcity, Gholami reflects on the obsessive journey behind the violin, the delicate dance between innovation and reverence, and why stepping away from market-driven design allowed him to find a new kind of voice—one that speaks to musicians, designers and dreamers alike.

Let’s start with “The Ultimate Object.” What does this violin represent to you—not just as a designer, but as a musician “obsessed with perfection”?

The Ultimate Object is what I came up with after trying to create a violin that is simple to transport, rugged and pleasing to the eye—and still sounds great. As a musician and designer, I wanted to have an instrument that can be played outside but still yields a full, true sound. It all started with a simple, instinctive question and grew through research, testing and hands-on craftsmanship.

For me, The Ultimate Object marks a turning point. As someone long obsessed with precision, I’ve noticed how musicians often focus on playing each note perfectly—technically flawless—rather than playing in a way that moves the audience, even if that means bending the rules. The same fixation exists in design, but it manifests differently. Designers need things to be “user-friendly,” so they emphasize being understandable, simple to utilize, and practical.

But with this violin, I wasn’t interested in just following convention or making things easier to use. I had to find out more. I think design’s true magic is in its ability to inspire imagination, to be “human-dream-friendly.” The Ultimate Object represents that ideal. It is not just a problem-solving tool; it is a work of art that challenges conventional thinking and inspires new ways of thinking, playing and creating.

You’ve described art as “a relentless pursuit of an ideal.” Was there a moment during the design process when that obsession fully took over—for better or worse?

Absolutely. There was a point, deep in the prototyping phase, where I wasn’t just testing the structure; I was haunted by it. Every time I thought I had landed on a final form, something felt unresolved: the angle of a body curve and its relationship to the stress exerted by the strings. I tweaked physical models endlessly, not because I had to, but because I couldn’t not. The violin stopped being a project and became a preoccupation. Looking back, that obsession wasn’t a detour, it was the process. It proved to me that deep care, even when maddening, is essential to making work that matters.

Your violin reimagines tradition through innovation—carbon fiber, a foldable structure, new acoustics. How did you navigate the tension between honoring the instrument’s legacy and reshaping it on your own terms?

I came to the violin with great respect for its tradition, yet with an openness to question what aspects of that tradition were essential and what could gracefully change. The goal was never to replace the classical violin, but to make a parallel instrument, one suited to a different context, possibly outdoor playing. At the same time, I understood that to reach that new territory, I had to go beyond tradition. Due to that, I kept the vital parts that give it personality: the fingerboard and the palm rest, where the player touches the instrument the most. I redesigned the frame around these elements with carbon fiber, foldable hinges and special tension to meet new needs. It was about respecting the past while being smart about making changes, not replication.

This project wasn’t shaped by market needs or mass production. Why was it important for you to remove those pressures—and how has that influenced your approach to design more broadly?

Moving away from commercial demands allowed me to design unfettered, permitting ideas to develop on their own, without needing to justify how they could be commercially viable. It was a chance to explore more intensively form, content and meaning—dimensions typically lost when design is more focused on fashion or profit. In that environment, my sensibilities were keener. I began to view design not merely as a problem-solving mechanism, but as a way of asking questions. Gradually, I began inclining toward being an artist—a person who is more interested in intention, narrative and the inner meaning of an object, than in its capacity to succeed in the market.

Your background spans classical music and design engineering. Do you see your work as a kind of translation between those two languages—or are you inventing a new one altogether?

It often feels like I’m translating between two worlds—but over time, that translation starts to become its own language. Music taught me how to be precise, how to feel, how to understand timing. Design gave me the tools to shape those instincts into something tangible. When the two come together, it’s more than just mixing disciplines, it’s about creating objects that speak both languages fluently, while developing a new kind of vocabulary that belongs entirely to the work itself.

Finally, music and design are often described as universal forms of communication. What do you hope this violin communicates—to musicians, to designers, or even to someone just seeing it in a gallery for the first time?

What I really hope this piece says is that beauty, function and experimentation can absolutely live side by side. That tradition doesn’t have to hold us back—it can be something we build from. If you’re a musician, I hope it makes you wonder what an instrument could be, beyond what we’ve always known. If you’re a designer, maybe it encourages you to take more risks, to push the craft a little further. And if you’re just seeing it with fresh eyes, I hope it makes you pause—even for a moment—and ask, “What else could this have been?” Or better yet, “What else could anything be?”

Looking ahead, are there other instruments or forms you’re drawn to reimagine—or was this your ultimate object in more ways than one?

The Ultimate Object was a culmination, but definitely not a conclusion. Like many designers, I’ve created works in response to user needs, and I’ve also made objects purely as a form of artistic expression. One example is my Wind Instruments project, which explored sustainability through sculptural form. I used an AI-assisted process and repurposed discarded materials, like plexiglass waste and microplastics, things most would consider useless. These pieces later exhibited at Good Chaos. Still, none of those projects pushed me to rethink context, use and meaning as deeply as The Ultimate Object did. That’s the kind of challenge I believe contemporary design needs. This project became a turning point that pushed me into new territory and opened up possibilities for what’s still to come.