Discover Martino Gamper’s cheerful furniture from 20 years

Throughout October, design enthusiasts and PAD and Frieze visitors excitedly made their way to a quiet residential street in London’s Marylebone. Here they step through the door of an ordinary brown brick house into the colorful world of Italian-born, London-based designer Martino Gamper.

Gamper’s distinctive work, spanning almost twenty years, is displayed in staged room sets throughout the Georgian estate – including a music room, games room, study, bedroom and living and dining area. Angular furniture pieces covered in a patchwork of laminate and teak, mixed tables and chairs, and alluringly tactile hooks, vessels, and lamps are all arranged throughout the home’s neoclassical interiors, forming a cheerful tapestry of colors, patterns, and eras.

Martino Gamper presents “Before; After and beyond

Titled “Before, After & Beyond,” this immersive presentation marks the designer’s first full retrospective since his career began in the mid-2000s. The idea came about after a conversation with former Wallpaper* editor-in-chief Sarah Douglas. “Sarah said, ‘People don’t really know the scope of your work,'” Gamper recalls. “She said, ‘I hardly know, and I’ve known you for twenty years.'” At the same time, Gamper had completed the mammoth task of archiving and cataloging his work, so a retrospective seemed like a natural progression.

To bring his vision to life, he worked with Douglas, refining the details, revising the selections and planning new works. From the beginning, Gamper was clear that he wanted to display his work in a domestic setting to create a more relaxed atmosphere for the exhibition. “I see so many design fairs where people make furniture and then display it on pedestals like art.” “I always find it very boring because it doesn’t tell the story,” he explains. “I like to tell stories and my pieces are domestic; They are tables and chairs and they are meant to be used. They have a function.’

Enter Swiss philanthropist and art collector Maja Hoffman, who has worked with Gamper many times throughout her career. When she learned that he was looking for a space for an exhibition in London, she generously offered the use of her 1770s townhouse designed by Robert and James Adam, which featured carpets designed by Rudolf Stingel and a copper-gilt ceiling on the first floor .

In Gamper’s showcase we find private commissions, museum projects, industrial designs, never-before-seen works and brand new creations made specifically for the show, including colorful glass lamps, mirrors, a decadent purple velvet bed and a mirror-lined drinks cabinet made from recycled teak. The black and white carpet in the games room was created in collaboration with the Milanese company CC-Tapis and another in the music room comes from the Swedish brand Bolon. A site-specific geometric travertine fireplace that Gamper created to replace a fireplace stolen from the house years ago will remain permanently preserved.

These new pieces fit seamlessly into Gamper’s previous works, such as his magnificent chairs from the 2007 exhibition “100 Chairs in 100 Days,” where he transformed discarded chairs into entirely new shapes through playful assembly. Gamper’s approach is unified by his experimental mindset, characterized by spontaneous creation and recontextualization of the work of design masters – including his reinterpretation of the furniture of Gio Ponti and Carlo Mollino. His inventive use of materials and color goes beyond decoration and instead serves to highlight and emphasize the unique form and character of each piece.

Born in 1971 in Merano, a city in German-speaking South Tyrol in northern Italy, Gamper began an apprenticeship with a furniture manufacturer in Merano before studying sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and then design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts College of Art in London, where he graduated in 2000. His background in both traditional crafts and contemporary design has served him well and is clearly reflected in his experimental and practical approach to making furniture and objects.

Gamper’s success and influence in the world of contemporary design is great. He has collaborated with renowned brands and institutions and exhibited in major museums and galleries, yet his style and approach remain grounded and consistent. “What I really like about the show is that I can’t tell which work is old and which is new,” he remembers. “The work is like a continuous form of research, and I think that is an achievement for me; That makes it feel timeless in a way.”

Although Gamper now works with three workshops – a joinery in Italy, one in Kent and one next to his studio in Hackney – and has a team of employees, he is still busy creating or scouting out recovery yards for the materials he produces can be incorporated into a cupboard door or a table leg. Manufacturing and materials research remains at the heart of his practice; He still finds it exciting to transform found materials that are typically perceived as kitschy or outdated – think linoleum, laminate, cherry, teak or Formica – into finely crafted pieces of furniture. “I’m always interested in what’s considered kitsch, what’s considered contemporary, what’s ugly and what’s beautiful – it’s a subtle line.” “When you buy brand new materials it feels a bit like a blank piece of paper, but when If you start from something that already exists, there is something to hold onto or something to inspire you.”

When we meet with Gamper, “Before, After & Beyond” is halfway through its run and he is delighted with the response. Long lunches and dinners took place around his “Lazy Ponti” and “Almost Ponti” mosaic laminate tables in the dining/living area, providing plenty of gatherings with colleagues and friends in each room. Gamper smiles as he remembers the visitors’ reactions: “Their eyes get really big and they say, ‘Wow, did you really do all that?'” After such a busy time and such a huge volume of work – the result of years He laughs when it comes to “saying yes to everything” – Gamper admits he’s ready to take on a slower pace. “I would like to spend time thinking about my next steps.” Maybe do less,” he ventures. “Do less by doing more in some ways.”