Following the donation of the Jujol 1920 table to the Barcelona Design Museum, Mobles 114 organized a conference about the designer, Jujol. The conference was carried out by Josep Maria Jujol (the architect’s son), Juan José Lahuerta (Director of the Gaudí Chair), JM Massana and JM Tremoleda (founders and editors of Mobles 114).

Jujol designer from Mobles 114 on Vimeo.

 

Pilar Velez, director of the Barcelona Design Museum, highlighted the importance of reissuing products and adding them to the museum’s collection.

The Jujol 1920 table is a re-edition of probably the only existing copy of this table, displayed at the National Art Museum of Catalonia and recently reissued by Mobles 114.

Josep Maria Jujol talked about his father, an architect and a designer; a multitalented figure and a complete artist lacking the recognition he deserved. With the re-edition of this table, we want to contribute spreading the importance of his work.

Juan José Lahuerta framed JM Jujol in the historical period of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries in which Jujol developed his work. A unique, risky, and often radical work, that melts in the different styles with which it coexists. Lahuerta also underlined Jujol’s collaboration in some of Antoni Gaud’s works, claiming a joint responsibility of the parts they designed together. An example of this is the reform they started in the Cathedral of Palma (Mallorca). Jujol and Gaudí, both with deep Catholic convictions, were expelled before they could finish the project due to the incomprehension of the canons, ecclesiastics who did not know how to appreciate a work too radical for their time.

JM Massana and JM Tremoleda, proponents of reissuing products and objects maintaining their contemporary essence, highlighted the modernity of the Jujol 1920 table and the reasons why they considered adding the table to the Classics Collection of Mobles 114.

 

 

 

The ADI-FAD (FAD Association of Industrial Design), the Associació per a l’Estudi del Moble (Association for the Study of Furniture) and the Mies van der Rohe Foundation commemorate the centenary of the Bauhaus with a making-of where they analyze the relationship between the Bauhaus and Spanish referents.

 

The event was initiated with an introduction to the Bauhaus by Xema Vidal. Vidal briefly explained the « idea » of the Bauhaus. Vidal’s pedagogical knowledge made the postulates of modernity very understandable, noting that the most remarkable feature of the Bauhaus is « the idea. » A school with few years of existence that transcends throughout the years and which influence lasts to our days.

 

Tallers Ribas and the company ROLACO were the manufacturers that produced furniture under the influence and also with the license of the Bauhaus. Ricardo Ribas and Pedro Feduchi were the speakers who respectively took us on a historical journey of the business trajectories in the cities of Barcelona and Madrid. From the beginning, the two capitals pointed towards Europe’s modernity, and these two companies were crucial in the dissemination, production, and sale of the aesthetic values claimed by the contemporary architecture of the 30s.

 

 

Antoni Mañach and Nina Masó talked about the GATCPAC lamp, reissued by Santa & Cole.

Mañach, philosopher and a professor at the ESDI school, developed a modern version of the Bauhaus thought, mixing concepts about the theory of artistic revolutions and its apparently contradictory authors, generating intense chaos that highlighted the idea of the action of design based on raging thoughts and sensible production (the head and the feet). Nina Masó, Santa & Cole’s publisher, shed some light on the GATCPAC lamp re-editing process that Santa & Cole incorporated into its catalog in 1995. The reissuing process was inspired by an original lamp owned by Raimon Torres, son of Josep Torres Clavé; outstanding member of the GATCPAC.

 

 

Oriol Pibernat and Gabriel Moragas talked about the GATCPAC chair, reissued by Mobles 114 under the name of Cadira Torres Clavé 1934 (Torres Clavé 1934 Armchair).

Oriol Pibernat, historian and a professor at the Eina school, provided GATCPAC’s historical context and talked about how its members moved away from Bauhaus modernity trends and its designs with chromed steel tubes, adapting to their own geography: The Mediterranean. Pibernat defended the will of GATCPAC members to sign collective authorship of the furniture they designed. Both a stance and a political and social claim that they carried out as a collective in the fields of architecture and design. Gabriel Moragas set out the background and different versions of the GATCPAC chair and explained how they decided to reissue the armchair that was renamed after Torres Clavé when it was added to the Classic Collection by Mobles 114. It has been proved that although GATCPAC defended collective authorship of its designs, the armchair was designed by Josep Torres Clavé, inspired by Ibiza’s famous cadirals (armchairs).

Fotografía: Anna Mas