Comfortable shapes
COURTESY OF FRIEDMAN BENDA AND THE ARTISTS. PHOTOGRAPHY: FERNANDO LASZLO
The name of the Campana brothers has become a trademark denoting an approach to design that is based on the creative upcycling of materials and the hybridisation of artisan and mass production. Their work spread across Italy when the Tuscan company Edra started to produce their first pieces, thanks to the mediation of Massimo Morozzi, who discovered their talent and whom the Campana brothers remember with great fondness (the designer and art director passed away last spring). Towards the end of the 1990s, the two brothers introduced in the Italian design world - still largely dominated by minimalism – their rather unusual works, obtained mainly from the assemblage of heterogeneous materials and characterised by a sense of humour and a “concept” that were, until that day, very uncommon. It was the invasion of “tropical design”, to quote a fitting definition that was created for them on their first exhibition at New York’s MoMa (in 1998, with Ingo Maurer). From their atelier in São Paulo, a city to which they are deeply tied and which, with its many contradictions, provides a fertile nesting ground for their creativity, they continue to collaborate with companies around the world, reaching across different sectors and always trying to contaminate savoir faire and modern technologies with their inclination for assemblage, upcycling and ready-made. ALI FILIPPINI. Your approach to design always begins from the materials, which, combined with technology, have inspired you from the start… CAMPANA BROTHERS. For us, materials continue to be important elements, which can determine the outcome of projects during the creative process. We like discovering new materials and we enjoy stretching the boundaries of research, trying to imagine what shape these materials could take on. The material itself suggests us “what it wants to become,” be it a chair or a lamp. We believe materials, shapes and functionality go hand-in-hand. From the start, we decided to work with common, cheap materials, also because we could not afford more expensive ones... Today we have chosen to con-
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THE MATERIAL ITSELF SUGGESTS WHAT OBJECT IT WILL BECOME tinue on this path because we believe that to reuse materials is an essential choice for our environment. This is why we are constantly searching for “poor”, disposable materials, to which we try to give some kind of dignity, whilst putting ourselves at the service of their nobleness. A.F. Speaking of reusing, how important is sustainability in your work? C.B. We see our work as something rare and needed. Our purpose is to humanise design, preserving the savoir faire of different artisan communities in the hope that this will have a positive impact on the production chain, so also towards the sustainability of materials and processes. A.F. Your studio looks more like a workshop, where objects are also created by hand… C.B. It does, and it reflects our approach to design. Which is quite apparent in the furniture collection we recently designed, entitled Detonado, where the underlying idea was inspired by the stringing patterns of tennis rackets. With this technique, we have tried to dematerialise the physical aspect, playing with the transparency of the nylon string. The weaving was handmade by a local artisan here in our studio in São Paulo. In addition to the brass structure and the nylon, we incorporated in our chair the iconic Vienna wicker seat taken from old Thonet chairs. The pieces in the Boca series were also entirely made here in our studio. In this collection we used the sewing technique. When you think of it, the act of sewing can appear brutal in its approach, almost surreal. This is why we used cowhide in an
INNOVATIVE ELEMENTS Above, the weaving of the Detonado Sofa was inspired by tennis rackets. Opposite, the Sushi Cabinet, made for the Carpenters gallery in London and Paris.
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