Design Miami/Basel : Highlights of the show

The practice of melting and casting bronze is inherited from ancient tradition. when Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Greek civilizations already used those techniques. This exceptional bronze coffee table illustrates Ado Chale’s vision of a craftsmanship that aims for the sustainability of art in time and his life-long quest for the excellence ofsavoir-faire. 

Chale’s intuitive sensibility allows him to create pieces of arts out of ordinary objects such as tables. As a genuinely talented craftsman, he truly applies art, researching and discovering all the possibilities, while focusing on his task to incorporate emotions to his creation. 

Extremely rare design by Alvar Aalto, this exceptional floor lamp  recalls the design of the hand grenade ceiling lamps designed at the end of the 1950’s. The golden colour of the brass shade produces a pleasant and diffuse light, creating a very warm atmosphere. The stone base illustrates Aalto’s interest in nature. 

Equally obsessed with the quality of the light produced and the aesthetics of the lamp, Alvar Aalto created his lighting fixtures as genuine sculptures.  While embracing the trend of functionnalism, Aalto developed his own approach, choosing curved lines  and organic shapes to convey a more lyrical feel to a primarly functional object. 

This beautiful Cadeira de Três Pés (or Three-legged chair) is one of Joaquin Tenreiro’s most emblematic works. It was designed in 1947, the same year Langenbach & Tenreiro – the designer’s own company- launched a shop in Rio de Janeiro. 

The seat and back of the chair are made in a single trapezoidal curved piece composed stripes of the different types of wood joined in parallel, alternating light and dark species. The ingenious assemblage of those stripes enhances the fluidity of the curve and creates a very expressive effect.  Stripped of any right angles or straight lines, the Three-legged chair presents a soft-curved shape that perfectly accommodates the human body. 

This unique three-seater sofa and its matching armchair are among the rare furniture designed by Danish architects and designers Hans-Christian Hansen and Viggo Jörgesen.After the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930, many Danish architects and designers experimented with previously unseen shapes to create new forms of upholstered furniture. For this exceptional sofa and armchairs, Hans-Christian Hansen and Viggo Jörgesen abandoned the austere, sharp edges of the functional school and favored organic forms and curved lines. The two pieces were  exhibited at the Copenhagen Cabinetmakers Guild in 1936 and at the Exposition Unniverselle in Paris in 1937.