Inform Interiors

In Barcelona, Spain – well known industrial designer, Rafael Marquina, has a daughter named Nani. She would grow to continue her fathers design legacy while also carving a new path for herself. Starting in Spain and branching outwards, Nani Marquina would go on to open her own interior design shop. In the late 80s, she went one step further and begun to manufacture her own carpet design collection. Today she is internationally known and praised, winning awards and even holding the presidency of the ADP (Design Professionals Association). On October 24th, we welcome Nani Marquina to our showroom for a very special engagement.

Nani Marquina was a student of industrial design at the Massana School. At the age of 22, she opened her first retail store “Self-Decor”. Ten years later, Nani began to design custom carpets and textiles. Not long after that, the nanimarquina brand was created. The Begonia collection was selected to be a part of the MoMA store.

Spain has an incredibly rich artistic and architectural heritage. Especially in Barcelona – with it’s countless Gaudi structures, beautiful concert halls and world-class culinary artists throughout. It is no wonder that Nani found inspiration in her home-town, along with her radiant personality and drive, she would generate mass appeal that has paired her company with the world’s leading designers. Nani is pictured on the left with her daughter Maria who also works at the company.

Nanimarquina has received numerous awards including the Red Dot, Delta Awards, National Design Award, and the Award for Woman Entrepreneurs FIDEM.

Continue reading “Nani Marquina | Carpet Diem” →

Although they remain largely oblivious to the press about them – they’ve never had a press kit and don’t have business cards – the french brothers are said to be heirs to the design throne of Philippe Starck. They’ve already garnered many awards and design for lines like Cappellini, Magis and Vitra, as well as for brands like Issey Miyake. Born in Brittany, Ronan, the elder, left for Paris to study design, and once he set up a studio, Erwan came to work and help his brother with the technology aspect of designing. After a few years of signing designs independently, they realised it would be more productive to work together.

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Cloud shelving system from Cappellini

Kvadrat showroom in Copenhagen, with Steelwood chairs and Kvadrat Clouds

Working together seems to work well for the two, who have a studio in St. Denis, a suburb north of Paris; at any one time they have about twenty projects on the go. Their designs tend to focus on the user, so that the products adapts to the customer, and not the other way around. This is true of the Cloud shelving system which can be stacked ad infinitum, and the Algues, pieces of plastic stems that can be linked together endlessly to create large screens, and still again with Joyn, their office system developped for Vitra. Joyn starts with a basic long white table with optional storage, lighting and screening elements.

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Vegetal chair

Their newest piece from the Bouroullecs that we have in store is the Vegetal chair, a piece from Vitra. Based on a 19th century American practice of trimming shrubs into chairs, the brothers wanted to design a “grown-chair”. It took many permutations and four years of development to finally release the chair, which weighs in at on 5.5kg, and is UV resistant, so it’s perfect for indoor and outdoor. There is a lovely little video that Vitra made to show the mutations of the Vegetal chair. See it here.

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Papyrus chair and Paniers coffee table, both from Kartell

We have many of the Bouroullec’s designs in store, so feel free to come in and see!

www.bouroullec.com

Top portrait of Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec by Nicole Bachmann for Vitra.

Tag: Bouroullec

Nani Marquina | Carpet Diem

Designers – Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec