Design File 003: Martino Gamper
Posted in: Design Files
In this series, Matthew Sullivan (AQQ Design) highlights some designers that you should know, but might not. Previously, he looked at the work of Jacques Adnet.
Martino Gamper: Born in Merano, Italy, 1971
So many design movements have come and gone in recent times, with each new one obfuscating or damning the previous, that we are often left to think that replacement (and probably a relativistic stasis) is all there is. It can seem like there is no genuine, conscientious dialogue; that the child is impervious to the parent. Whether this is an entrenched biological strategy of evolution or simply not seeing the forest for the trees is not for me to know, but . . . the feeling is certainly a drag.
Countering this tendency and this feeling is possible, but it would require a particular intelligence and temperament, a standalone perspective with buoyancy and perhaps joyousness. This person would need to have a conversational and extemporal technique for problem-solving, not inclined towards specious, ex nihilo design innovations.
Martino Gamper is such an empathic and curious personage, and is a fair and welcome exception for our times.
Above: Gamper’s 2010 Vigna chair for Magis (left) and a chair from the exhibition Tu Casa, Mi Casa, now on view at the Modern Institute in Glasgow, Scotland.
Top image: three chairs from Gamper’s 100 Chairs in 100 Days series
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