Feature: Nation Building

Andrew Myers

05/01/2006

Any geneticist, horse breeder, chemist or chef will talk proportion of ingredients and primacy when determining the aesthetics and quality of a product. The same rule might also be applied to furniture, where country of origin influences style and substance. Brazil, Ireland and Canada—three countries with as little in common as samba, Riverdance and Céline Dion—are each producing furniture of superlative quality that reflects the uniqueness of the individual designers, as well as each one’s home nation.

 Canadian Lee Kline explores innovative manufacturing methods for his collection of contemporary tables and chairs. Photograph by Peter Schafrick. (Click image to enlarge)

BRAZIL
Brazil with brazil’s forests of hardwoods, it is little wonder that wood, in all its richness and complexity, often forms the foundation of furniture collections by Brazilian designer-manufacturers. What is perhaps more surprising (or at least less well known) is that the level of craftsmanship of many of these collections now seems on par with that of the most prestigious workshops in Italy, an opinion substantiated by the fact that two such Italian houses, Living Divani and Porro, have furniture made for the South American market in Brazil, the first time either company has licensed production outside Italy. Although historically Brazil has exported more timber than tables, it ranks among the world’s 10 largest furniture manufacturers (furniture exports between 1994, at $293 million, and 2004, at $940 million, have tripled).

Photograph by Click Foto. (Click image to enlarge)

Design and production are concentrated in the country’s southern states, perhaps not coincidentally, as they have large Italian immigrant populations dating from the 19th century.  A strong tradition of craftsmanship and a national love of modernism, combined with a wealth of resources, a relatively weak national currency and an unfaltering euro, set the stage for Brazilian designer-manufacturers to become principal players in the world of high-profile furniture design.

Founded by self-taught designer Etel Carmona in 1988, Etel Interiores and its signed, custom-made furniture are a testament to tradition while nodding toward tomorrow.  The pieces, designed by Carmona and noted Brazilian designers Claúdia Moreira Salles and Isay Weinfeld, are made entirely by hand, using old-fashioned techniques of woodworking, joinery and marquetry. Forms favor the contemporary—geometric and organic shapes ideal for highlighting the varieties of wood grain. Etel Interiores also manufactures reproductions of Black & White furniture—1950s designs by a pantheon of Brazilian modernist architects, including Miguel Forte, Jacob Ruchti and Carlos Millan. Less mid-century and more thoroughly modern is the company’s deep-seated commitment to sustaining Brazil’s forests. Since 1999, Etel and her company have been directly involved in forest sustainability projects, and the company uses woods only from government-managed and -monitored forests. In 2001, Etel Interiores was awarded certification from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and became the first Brazilian handcrafted furniture manufacturer to receive the council’s Green Seal.

Photograph by Eugenio Paccelli. (Click image to enlarge)

Equally eco-conscious, the company Moura Starr believes in making 300 pieces of furniture—sideboards, so fas and chairs; dining, coffee and end tables; dressers and beds—from a single tree, one never felled before it has completed its life cycle. Moura Starr also believes in statement-­making contemporary design. Company designers Graca Kazan and Luis Mario Moura draw on their architectural backgrounds to create sleek, strong shapes, many utilizing glass and polished metals, which are juxtaposed with hardwoods as rich and exotic as their names (imbuia, cabreuva, acai, sucupira), leathers from Brazil’s ranch country and sheets of lead crystal. This combination of the natural and the high tech means that every piece is “naturally” unique: Each is slightly different by virtue of the unique organic materials used. Paradoxically, this celebration of nature is made possible only because of Moura Starr’s proprietary veneering methods, by which wood is bonded to carbon. Also intricate in construction, Maurício Azeredo’s furniture is puzzlelike. He might use 30 different types of wood cut at various angles—some sinuous, others ­angular—in the construction of a single table. Azeredo bases his collections on the variety and color of the various woods, and many, such as the Rayô Series, comprise signed and dated pieces. Most of these are clean-lined, geometric shapes (squares and rectangles particularly), ideal planes for the rich play of wood and pattern. Azeredo, a former film student and trained architect born in Rio, makes his furniture using construction and joinery methods—dovetails, a three-­dimensional joint—that, following the Arts and Crafts tradition, are visible components of the overall design.

Photograph courtesy Espasso. (Click image to enlarge)

Etel Interiores, +55.11.3064.1266, www.etelinteriores.com.br
Moura Starr, 310.854.9100, www.mourastarr.com
Maurício Azeredo, www.mauricioazeredo.com.br

IRELAND
Ireland’s metamorphosis into an economic juggernaut is having a corresponding effect in the world of Irish design. Dublin-based Heneghan Peng Architects’ plan for a $335 million museum at the base of the Great Pyramids in Egypt triumphed over more than 1,500 other submissions in one of the largest architectural competitions to date. The National College of Art and Design in Dublin is expanding its postgraduate program from 16 to 50 students to meet demand. However, with an absence of a 20th-century design legacy, largely due to political upheaval and uncertainty as well as economic depression, contemporary Irish designers choose to focus less on a search for Irishness and more on exploring an aesthetic style described by the New York Times’ Virginia Gardiner as “Irish-inflected European.”

That term’s definition is exemplified in the made-to-order furniture of ­Joseph Walsh, who learned traditional furniture making and has a special appreciation for traditional Irish farmhouse furniture design: “its purity of form, exposed joinery and use of solid materials.” Walsh augmented his education with travels throughout the United Kingdom and Scandinavia, where he found inspiration in Scandinavian boatbuilding techniques as well as in museums. Working predominantly with native Irish hardwoods such as olive ash, elm, walnut and sycamore, which he sometimes adorns with Connemara marble and precious metals, he creates vibrant, sculptural pieces that combine elements of Art Nouveau, a sophisticated theatricality, and pure, almost Zen-like forms emphasizing the intrinsic qualities of the woods and other materials.

 Designs from Thomas Kay, who often carves his furnishings from a single tree trunk. Photograph by Roland Paschhoff. (Click image to enlarge)

Another artist integral to the new wave in Irish design is Thomas Kay. Born and raised in Switzerland, the sculptor, painter and furniture maker lived in West Africa before settling in Ireland in 1989. His work reflects his exposure to diverse cultures as well as his professional training in architecture and stained glass manufacturing. The pieces sometimes reference postmodern Memphis furniture in scale, use of primary color and whimsy, but they most often evoke an elemental fluidity in line and shape. The elegance is surprising, in light of the fact that Kay often carves his furnishings in one piece from one tree trunk, using a chain saw, hammer and chisel. He does not necessarily sand his work either, preferring the chain saw’s irregular marks to lend a texture that contrasts with the sleekness of line (and also defies the more commonplace look of smooth finishes in bespoke woodwork). Kay’s work ranges from collections of assembled branches to sculptures carved from single trunks to an installation that complemented his series of paintings based on megalithic art found in Ireland.

A whimsical chair by Joseph Walsh references Art Nouveau. Photograph by Andrew Bradley. (Click image to enlarge)

Stephen O’Briain is interested in simplicity of line and form. But the craftsmanship required to achieve that goal is anything but simple. Focusing on meticulously detailed joints and hand-planed curves, O’Briain often leaves swaths of wood unadorned, letting the beauty of the material speak for itself, and in doing so, leaving no room for error in craftsmanship or blemishes of any kind. Such artistry comes from O’Briain’s training as a painter, as well as his genes: a tradition of woodworking in his family stretches back three generations.

Photograph by Roland Paschhoff. (Click image to enlarge)

Joseph Walsh, +353.21.477.1759, www.josephwalshfurniture.com
Thomas Kay, +353.27.61048, www.kayartdesign.com
Stephen O’Briain, +353.599.77.1820, www.obriainfurniture.comCANADA
While the classical virtues—prudence, ­moderation, justice and courage—have turned Canada into a stable nation, with rational policies and hardworking citizenry, they are traits not especially conducive to creativity. However, the Vancouver-based design and business collective BARK, whose upcoming exhibition entitled All Terrain Cabin will travel around the world and serve as a mobile showcase for Canadian design and technology, is doing a marvelous job of showing just how big and bold the Maple Leaf can be.

Heading up Canada’s emerging design elite is Ornamentum. Founded as a bespoke furniture source for interior designers, architects and private clients in 1999, Ornamentum launched its first collection in 2004 with bench-made, signed and dated pieces by four designers: Barbara Bell, Victor Chan, Bradley Overbye and Grant Wyllychuk. The company is also mission-driven: The collection will grow as the company finds, licenses and promotes new designs from both established and up-and-coming Canadian designers. What unites the collection—tables, chairs, sideboards, beds, as well as commissioned pieces—is the common thread of simplicity, the eco-certified woods and finishes, and that ­every piece is made to order, allowing for scrutiny of detail and ­customization of dimensions, materials and configuration.

The designs, while contemporary, also seem subtly different from their U.S., South American and European counterparts, a nuance not lost on designer Grant Wyllychuk, who says, “We’re a diverse, multilingual nation with an enormous and changing landscape, yet a Canadian thread keeps our cultural identity sovereign, spanning distances, languages and mixed cultures. Where design is an expression of the designer, Canadian contemporary design is quiet and clean, distinct from other contemporary design by that immeasurably unique je ne sais quoi.”

Top photo: The aluminum and fiberglass Merge table; Middle photo: aluminum and molded plyform Contour chair; Bottom photo: aluminum and fiberglass Pocket Pill table, all from Lee Kline. Photography by Peter Schafrick. (Click images to enlarge)

That sense of patriotism is also present at Bombast, founded in 1990 by Russell Baker and David Eichorn, which builds an impressive collection of contemporary furniture in a style that fuses minimal, even terse, profiles with soft, inviting surfaces. Baker, a boldface in the Canadian ­design community, is acutely aware of Canada’s role in the innovation of contemporary design, such as the production of the first one-piece molded-plastic chair in 1946. Bombast's functional designs buil on this legacy.

Furniture designer Lee Kline's penchant for working with innovative materials—including cast aluminum, synthetics and new varieties of coatings—leaves little mystery as to why his company Kline Furniture is in the vanguard of creative, contemporary design. Kline's bold, highly engineered pieces, specifically the metal-and-glass MiMi coffee table, the metal-and-wood Solito stool and the Merge table in machined aluminum, demonstrate how his work focuses not just on pioneering design but also on creative manufacturing methods.

Ornamentum, 877.215.7444, www.ornamentum.bc.ca
Bombast, 604.251.2092, www.bombastfurniture.com
Kline Furniture, 416.817.8769, www.klinedesign.com