Martino Gamper: 100 chairs in 100 days in 100 ways, part 2: Walking Chair

Walking Chair Poster

Through Viennese Gallery Walking Chair I got acquainted with Martino Gamper first.

Martino Gamper as Host
Martino Camper here as a Chef in one of his recent ventures

Italian born Martino Gamper is an artist and chair maker. He studied in Vienna and is located in East London.

Martino Gamper, Best Chair Alchemist
Martino Gamper, Best Chair Alchemist

He is a real Chair-O-Holic who doesn’t only collect photos of chairs like me, but also collects real chairs and then does something with his collection.

With his project 100 chairs in 100 days in 100 ways he produced one chair per day giving old chairs he had collected a new twist.

Here are some photos I was able to collect from the Walking Chair exhibition in Vienna:

Martino Gamper Walking Chair 01

The Bottom is made from an ‘Arnold Circus’ Stool. The Arnold Circus stool was designed by Gamper in 2006 for The Friends of Arnold Circus, a regeneration project in Shoreditch, East London.

Martino Gamper Walking Chair 08

This one bears some distant resemblance with Joseph Hoffman’s Sits Machine. Aptly shown in Vienna.

Martino Gamper: 100 chairs in 100 days in 100 ways, part 1: Walking Chair

Martino Gamper at the Walking Chair Gallery
Martino Gamper at the Walking Chair Gallery in 2006

My first encounter with Martino Gamper was through the announcement of the opening of the Walking Char Gallery in Vienna in september 2006.

Walking Chair Gallery in Vienna: Entrance
Walking Chair Gallery in Vienna: Entrance

About Walking Chair

Walking Chair Motto

Walking Chair is a design Studio with a Gallery and a web shop, Walking Things. Their studio is located in what used to be a classic high ceiling Viennese café, which later was converted into a motor garage. Meeting six years ago while working as freelance designers for the Lomographic Society on a new type of handset, the Swiss born, Basel trained, typeface, typographic, filmmaker and communication designer Fidel Peugeot joined forces with the Italian, Vienna trained, mechanical engineer turned product designer Karl Emilio Pircher.

Walking Chair Designs:
I found two chair related designs by Walking Chair:

Walking Chair Monte Bello Sofa
Their Monte Bello Sofa

and

Banja Luka Chair
Their Banja Luka Chair

They featured Martino Camper’s 100 chairs project from September 28, 2006 – December 24, 2006 in their Walking Chair Gallery.

I was in Vienna in that period, but alas missed this opportunity lacking time and knowledge (I hadn’t started this Blog yet).

See my next posts.

Erika Winters: Chair Redesigner in Mexico City


Silver chair before redesign

About Erika Winters

Erika Winters has worked for several years redesigning used furniture.
There are endless possibilities when reconditioning furniture, no matter its state of repair. Furniture and people are similar, daily wear and tear takes its toll. Values taught to us as children become outdated, and although they lose relevance as time goes by, they quietly keep their memory, marked by use and the passage of time. Her furniture shows the longing for what we have passed by, left, thought, lost or let go, that old warmth of certain values that have been lost. When rescuing a piece of furniture, Erika makes it as vivid and modern as its surroundings, picking up on something that she had or felt near – so that anyone who can identify with it and its history can enjoy it again, converting it into something unique and important for their house, something that no-one will find ever, anywhere else.


Erika Winters Silver Chair After Redesign

Bio

Erika Winters grew up in the Condesa neighborhood of Mexico City, opposite a beautiful palm tree lined avenue, in a house built in 1935, where her great-aunt who is 101 years old still lives. She spent her teenage years on Calle Amsterdam, a few blocks from Parque Mexico which was like an extension of her house, like the Bosque de Chapultepec and the Museum of Modern Art  which had no railings in those days. Erika remembers walking through the woods with her mother, going to open air concerts in Ciudad Universitaria and The Amazing Lagunilla Market, That’s also like a museum for me. It was a different Mexico City back then.

These are the roots of some her influences which have left a spiritual mark on her and which definitely inspire her way of working.


Erika Winters Golden Chair before Redesign

In the 1990s Erika Winters founded Alquitrabe, a brand of lamps using everyday old and antique objects, placing them in the best department stores and interior decoration shops in Mexico. Alquitrabe products were exported to Argentina, Spain and Switzerland; they were exhibited and sold in Costa Mesa California and inSOHO  (New York), in La Galeria Mark Shapiro. She occasionally still works with lamps but not for such large customers, but on a more exclusive and smaller scale.

Portfolio
Founder of Alquitrabe, 1992-2004, Mexico City;

  • Design, coordination and supervision of 385m2 of office space for Marriott Ownership Resorts Int, Zona Rosa, Mexico City;
  • Shop window design for Telafashion  electrodomestic stores, Mexico City;
  • Initial projects and remodelling of De Maurice beauty parlor, Marriott Vacation Club Int offices in Mexico City, and for the Gestalt Institute, Lomas Verdes, Mexico City
  • Design, PR and sales for Alquitrabe lamps. I promoted these lamps in various parts of the world, Mexico, USA, Spain, Switzerland and Argentina

Erika Winters Golden Chair After Redesign

Founder of Erika Winters Design, 2005, Mexico City

  • Recovery and restoration of different types of furniture
  • Remodelling, design and adaptation of an apartment for the “Circle of Existential Studiesa Institute, Colonia Del Valle, Mexico City
  • Restoration of Izote Restaurante in Polanco, Mexico City
  • Interior Decoration and remodelling of Hacienda Mamey Domingo, Morelos, Mexico
  • Remodeling of a house in Reforma Lomas, Mexico City
  • Shop window design for Ma Maison, CAD Ciudad de (Centro de Arquitectura y Diseo).
  • Remodeling of a house in Balmori Building, Roma, Mexico City.

Via
Coroflot Portfolios pointed me to Erika Winters Design.