Three Layer Cake

“Don’t be nervous!  Fernando and Humberto are very charming, you’ll see,” their assistant Lelia advised.  And charming is only one in a long list of positive adjectives that describe the Campana brothers, as they are known.  Born in the countryside near São Paolo, Brazil, the Campana brothers secured a star in the high-end design constellation with their Vermelha chair, produced by Italian firm Edra in 1998. 

Their work reflects their connection to their community, their culture, and the Brazilian geography between the countryside where they grew up and the urban São Paolo where they studied and now live.  It also reflects their connection to one another.  Fernando and Humberto put great emphasis on teamwork and on materials.  They are in constant pursuit of new applications for recycled materials and ways to increase the amount of recycled material used in each of their designs, with an ultimate goal of 100%.  Their relationship with the high-tech world of Edra and Alessi is counterbalanced by their own small workshop and production laboratory which turns out innovative work in limited edition pieces. 

It’s easy to connect with the brothers once you experience their open, kind and willing demeanor.  Appreciation for their designs deepens once you hear their intentions behind the designs.  Of course many designers have reasons for designing the way that they do, but not all designers have a bigger goal in mind--  that of giving back to the local community in which they grew up, and the global community of which they have become a part.  Like a solar cell turns light into energy, they store the sensations and passion they feel from other designers and other cultures and use it as fuel for their own design processes. 

Interconnected, innovative, sustainable, and well, fun.  A few other positive adjectives that describe the Campana brothers and their work. (photo:  Fernando and Humberto Campana, by Yoshiaki Tsutsui) (See part two of their interview here)

For what contribution would you like to be known to the design field?  What would the introduction to the chapter on “Campana Brothers” say?

Humberto:  This is a most difficult question to answer (laugh).  I don’t think about the future.  It’s not to be pretentious, but I live my life daily.  I’m worried about the moment I’m in and am focused on doing something I like.  I’m interested in making a chair or having a good idea that pleases me or makes me feel alive.  But to talk about what should be written about me, I wouldn’t like to say, because I could change my mind in two hours, two weeks, two years.  I might look back on this interview and say “How foolish you were!”  But if I have to answer I can say that the chapter on us would say we did what pleased us and what pleases us now is doing materials research and showing possibilities for more than one use for materials. 

 
Much of your work is based on realities in and your relationship with Brazil.  Rather than a specific physical trait, what intangible traits distinguish Brazilian design from American and European design?  Is this similar across South America, or does each country share a distinct design identity?

Humberto:  I guess today there are younger designers who are looking for other ways to make chairs or furniture without the help of big companies because the big companies can’t embrace all of the designers who come out of the schools every year.  I wouldn’t say that there is a particular design.  So one thing that can be produced in the USA manually can remind you of a Brazilian, Guatemalan, or Ceylon design.  The world has been so globalized, it has brought people to make production in their homes like we did in the beginning. Then little by little we started with companies in Italy.  It’s true that sometimes our own work focuses on some parts of Brazil, because we try to make pictures of our environment.  But it’s to try to translate some aspects of Brazil which are too hidden by globalization.  I can say that I don’t think Brazil is about Carneval or the  bright colors often associated with it.  Stereotypes are something we try to avoid in our work.  At the end of the day though, I don’t see any significant distinction between Brazilian design and others. 

In terms of South America, there is no dialogue between countries here.  We don’t know much about the other cultures around us even though we’re all so close together.  I don’t know much about who is making good design in Argentina.  Maybe we should have some fairs in South America to know more about what is happening, that’s an idea.
 

What role does being a designer play in your lives?

Humberto:  Everything.  It’s my life.  I wouldn’t be happy if I weren’t a designer.  It’s about life and passion.  (Above, the making of a Sushi chair, here Humberto in the studio.  Photos:  Estudio Campana).

Fernando:  I think it’s about not being a conformist.  Sometimes you feel something really strongly inside.  We always knew we wanted to communicate something about ourselves.  We used to go to the cinema every day.  We got a culture that way.  While other kids were in the backyard playing soccer, we went to the cinema.  During the day, we recreated our universe based on what we saw in the cinema.  So we felt that need to communicate.  So designing is a way we picked up to promote, bridge a language, make a portrait of our personality and what surrounds us.  It’s not a political statement.  We don’t deny our roots in the countryside, it’s very important to us.  And also the urban side of São Paulo is important for us.  So as designers, we bring our experiences with the movies and the countryside together to say something about ourselves. 

How do you set your professional goals together?

Humberto:  It’s difficult.  It’s a constant dialogue.  It’s a close relationship we have.  Sometimes one of us brings a concept and the other develops it.  There is always something we’re discussing.  Today we have two assistants, Leo and Lelia, who play important roles in our projects.  Their opinions are very important because they don’t have the same stake that Fernando and I have.  They’re at our studio in order to have fresh ideas in order to help us solve our problems.  Once there were two of us, but today we create with four heads.

 
Humberto you were trained in law and Fernando you in architecture.  Which strengths do each of you contribute to the design process?  To the studio?  How can someone distinguish one of your ‘signatures’ (in a product’s design) from the other’s?  (For example, maybe one of you tends to use more color the other tends to emphasize material) 

Humberto:  I studied law but gave it up right after graduation, so what I learned about design I learned with my hands and going to museums.  In São Paulo, during the seventies, I went a lot to the Museu de arte de São Paolo, designed by Pietro Maria Bardi and his wife Lina Bo Bardi.  The museum is such a beautiful museum done with such beautiful scenography that I was so inspired.  She was the first person who had a modern vision of Brazil in all its elegance.  What distinguishes my work from Fernando is that I’m much more intuitive.  Fernando is much more rational.  He gives function to my dreams and my work.  And sometimes I give the same to his work.  It’s not possible to separate the concepts.  For example, I started the concept for the Corallo, but it was too heavy (Photo:  Corallo chair, photo by Edra).  Once Fernando saw it, he took off all the heavy elements and made it lighter.  Our creations are half and half.  I’m much more involved with the physical part, working with the hands because that’s the way I learned.  Fernando comes along once I’ve gotten that initial prototype and starts to tinker with it, and also Lelia and Leo.
 

You have a workshop and an approach to design which makes products from poor materials and involves the community in workmanship.  But you also produce at the opposite extreme, i.e. high-end design.  How do you reconcile the two?  How much of your community is in each piece? 

Humberto:  In addition to Fernando, Leo and Lelia, we have five more people in our studio working in the backyard who make the chairs, like Sushi, and who from communities around São Paolo and the northeast of Brazil.  We try to bring them to our studio and little by little have more contact with the realities of Brazil, through materials and people.  Admittedly the amount we are able to do is little.  My brother and I should do more and this is something that we are focusing on more and more and we are taking our work in this direction.  For us, it is important to work in two directions—with big companies, like Alessi and Edra, which give us recognition and a name in the world.  They are serious and it is important to work with big companies with high technology.  But it is also important to have our workshop to make it a laboratory of ideas, to bring new ideas to the table and see what we can do in the future.  Like now, we are working with several elements, natural fibers, trying to use recycled materials that maybe in the future that we can introduce to big companies.  It’s important to work with this balance—to keep producing with the big companies and keep small editions in the studio which allow us to investigate, do materials research, make furniture, and try to have a little respect for the planet.  We work with recycling, although it’s not 100%, we’d like to move in this direction, and we’d like to get big companies to invest more and more in these types of projects. 

Time Capsule:  Which three of your designs would you include in a time capsule that say the most about you and the times we live in? 

H:  Vermelha Chair (left, photo by Edra), the Favela Chair (above, photo by Edra), and the Bubble Wrap chair (pictured right).  These three chairs say the most about me and the times I live in.  The Vermelha talks about freedom, the Favela about our streets, and Bubble Wrap about recycling— to use and reuse. 

So what did you think about what Maarten Baas did with your Favela Chair ?

I loved what Maarten Baas did with my chair!  Nothing is forever!  I like this concept!  I’m not so convinced about this idea of immortality, even the time capsule…maybe the world will blow up before it’s ever opened! 

Fernando:  I agree with the Vermelha chair because it was about a project between the two of us.  He was trying to use ropes, and from that I got the idea of structure.  That’s the engineering between us.  I pick up his ideas and try to transform them into something real and concrete.  Maybe because I have a background in architecture.  So designing that chair was half and half, like many of our projects.  But this one is more powerful because it became our portrait to the rest of the world.  I hope I don’t seem arrogant, but in a way we were trying to put Brazil on the design map, and we were successful.  We are more concerned with creation in our work, not with results.  Of course we needed the money and the recognition.…  The other ones, let me see…  The Banquete chair with the stuffed animals and the Multidão with the dolls are opposites of each other.  One comes from China one from the northeast area of Brazil.  These dolls have odd expressions.  Some don’t have mouths, some don’t have noses.  They are handicrafts, folk products, they look like voodoo.  If you see something similar in central America, it would probably be voodoo.  In Brazil we have voodoo, but it’s not like this.  This chair was a way to recreate culture without using a traditional order the way it is usually done.  I am very proud of it.  It’s quite comfortable and attractive. But if you pay attention to the animals they are not being nice.  They are eating each other, that’s why it’s called Banquete which means soup.  We took a childish element and made it for adults, to show the world we live in.  The Multidaõ with its people (pictured right, photo by Luis Calazans) by are like the crowds, and the Banquete makes you think about the chain of nature. 

Sometimes they speak with you, sometimes they become a part of your life.  I would like for them to be a part of other people’s lives, so I would feel that I have completed the circle of creation in someone’s home.

 
Ronaldinho, Roberto Carlos, or Dida? 

Humberto:  Can I counterpropose three people?  What about Oscar Niemeyer?  João Gilberto, he’s like the Pope for me!  or Roberto Burle Marx.  He was a Brazilian landscaper. 

Fernando:  I would say my nanny Alice, who raised me and my two other brothers because she’s very noble.  She stayed with us for 24 years, and after my father died, she  stayed with my mother and is still there. 

Raí – he used to play for St. Germain.  He has quit a little bit the game, he has a structure for very poor kids and he teaches them how to play soccer and to make connections with European teams and other exchanges.  This is noble because I had a housekeeper in my home and her son went to this school and now he’s in Switzerland and I think he’s giving good examples.

Another is Carlinhos Brown who has the same structure in Bahia in a neighborhood, in a favela, he has a recording studio in this place and he made a community there, and brings in students to learn music, dance, art expression, anything they feel like doing. 
 

What motivates you?
 

Humberto:  People.  Interesting people.  People who love design, like Alexander Von Vegesack from Vitra Design Museum, Murray Moss from Moss Gallery in New York, Massimo Morozzi at Edra, and Paola Antonelli to name a very few.  To be in contact with these types of people who are passionate about design is extremely motivating.  Work of other colleagues like Ross Lovegrove, Hella Jongerius makes me envious in a positive way.  I’d like to do something as good as they do. 

Fernando:  Whenever I feel that things are alive.  In good or in bad.  When everyone understands the synchronicity in life of people.  Understanding what’s behind people, you realize you can’t judge the good or the bad you just see when suddenly things change.  That, I think is the magic of life.  Not the people, but the soul of people.  An animal, even in the forest, we can dominate, but the human brain is impossible to dominate and you can use it in anyway you want.  (Photo:  Leo and Lelia, by Estudio Campana)

Interview continues