About the Museum Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Calendar of Events Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Special Events Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Press
Exhibitions Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Collections Online Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Education Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Visit Cooper-Hewitt Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Join & Support Cooper-Hewitt Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum National Design Awards Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum The Shop at Cooper-Hewitt

Design Blog Design Blog » Campana Brothers

Design Geography


Fernando and Humberto Campana grew up in Brotas, Brasil, 235 kilometers (146 miles) north of São Paulo. When the Campanas were growing up it was a small town that was renowned for its exuberant natural features and good soil for growing coffee.

“Brotas is home, it is where everything began. We had very little to do in such a small town, so the geography of our surroundings were the instruments of our playtime. Brotas is an (sub)urban place full of rivers, waterfalls, trees and animals and we carry these imprints whether we want it or not.

In Brotas we also learned about movies. The movie theater run by an uncle of ours showed all kinds of vanguard films such as Bertolucci, Stanley Kubrick, Fellini, Polanski and Brazilian productions. This allowed us to dream and create with no boundaries as these great filmmakers.

That played a very important part in our lives: today we try to translate that small countryside town into our designs.”

—Fernando and Humberto Campana

Video: Curating Campana Brothers Select

Watch this video in high quality

“I think the curatorial process is how to tell a history about something in a different way with a different point of view, with a different light on it.” —Fernando Campana
“I would go a little bit further. For me what attracts me to make these curatorial choices was based on nature, the weaving process inserted in nature with the passion that we have for nature.” —Humberto Campana
“Also maybe that picture of the cupid inspiring nature to create - for me that’s wonderful image to start the exhibition. —Fernando Campana
“To create - I guess it’s creating a shock between nature and the urban as we always do in our work.” —Humberto Campana

Making Vermelha chair

Vermelha chair
Vermelha chair
Vermelha chair

The Vermelha chair is an iconic piece, originally conceived and prototyped in 1993 for a gallery show in São Paulo along with several other pieces. The construction of the chair is very time-intensive, as it is handmade from a huge length of rope wrapped and woven to create the chair’s structure. Though the piece is beautiful, no one really believed real upholstery could be made using ropes. Everybody who saw it would comment, “Oh, this is an art piece. This cannot be a successful furniture design.” Many people were cynical about the chair, and it received a lot of criticism at the time.

One person disagreed. Massimo Morozzi, the art director of Edra, saw an image of the Vermelha chair in Mel Byers’s book 50 Chairs. He phoned me in São Paulo and said, “I want to produce the Vermelha chair.” I thought he was joking and said, “You’re kidding me. The chair requires 450 meters of rope woven in a very imprecise way. How can we make this work?” After I consulted with Humberto, we decided to offer Edra a step-by-step videotape of how to weave the chair. Though the process was very primitive for them to translate, Edra loved it. From 1998, Edra produced the Vermelha chair, which grew to be one of its bestsellers. They helped to transform it from a hand-crafted art piece into semi-mass-produced furniture design. —Fernando Campana

“For me, the Vermelha chair is an homage to chaos. It’s a portrait of Brazil, a melting pot of culture and races and represents how fragmented my life always is or was, and I try to manifest that idea into a kind of chair that is chaotic in its very construction.”
—Humberto Campana

Slideshow: Making Trans… chair

Fernando and Humberto explain their TransPlastic series as a fictional story wherein, in a world made of plastic, synthetic matter eventually becomes fertile ground for transgenic creations in which nature grows from and eventually overpowers plastic.

The Trans… chair, the final piece in the Campanas’ TransPlastic collection, was designed especially for Cooper-Hewitt and is featured in Campana Brothers Select. The Trans… chair is entirely woven in wicker, marking the end of the battle when nature has virtually completed its domination of plastic. Reinforcing this confrontation, the chair expels iconic plastic elements from its wicker structure. The woven wicker element of the chair serves a dual purpose by uniting with the underlying theme of woven materials in the Campanas’ exhibition.

"The chair was designed as if it was eliminating the plastic, the parasite, showing nature’s rebellion."
—Humberto Campana

Campana Brothers Select: Works from the Permanent Collection is on view February 15–September 28, 2008.