Brazilian Hardwood "Poltrona Moleca" Suite by Sergio Rodrigues
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Brazilian Hardwood "Poltrona Moleca" Suite by Sergio Rodrigues
About the Item
Measurements below are for the chairs. Sofa measurements as follows: (H) 84cm (W) 190cm (D) 88cm.
One often finds either a pair of armchairs OR a sofa, but to find a suite is a serious rarity. The 'MOLE' ('Soft') series, of furniture - or in this example the Poltrona Moleca or "Mischevious Chair" - very much put Rodrigues "on the map", so to speak and he has now become the joint most important furniture designer in Brazil along side Joaquim Tenreiro. Known as "the Father of Brazilian Furniture", Rodrigues' concept for the Mole Series was to produce the ultimate comfortable chair.
Reference: Fully illustrated and described in "Sergio Rodrigues" published by Icatu, 2000. Illustrated in `Cadeiras Brasileiras` (Brazilian Chairs) Exhibition: Sao Paulo, 1994/95 Illustrated "Movel Moderno no Brasil" by Maria cecilia Loschiavo dos Santos (Front Cover and full illustrated text inside showing and picturing the full contruction process of this important series.)
- Creator:Sergio Rodrigues (Designer)
- Dimensions:Height: 29.53 in (75 cm)Width: 39.38 in (100 cm)Depth: 33.47 in (85 cm)
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:1963
- Condition:Good with wear consistant with age.
- Seller Location:London, GB
- Reference Number:Seller: 241stDibs: U0803148404362
Sergio Rodrigues
The prolific architect and designer Sergio Rodrigues is often called the "father of modern Brazilian design," but it is the second adjective in that phrase that deserves emphasis: Rodrigues’s great achievement was to create furniture in a style that captured the spirit, character and personality of his country.
Modernity came slowly to 20th-century Brazil, politically and culturally. The nation finally realized genuine constitutional democracy in 1945, ushering in a new, progressive era in the arts. Until that time, heavy furniture based on historical European models had been the norm. In the late 1940s, designer Joaquim Tenreiro introduced sleek, minimalist chairs and cabinets; José Zanine Caldas, now best known for his later artisanal work, created plywood furnishings for mass-production; the Italian architect Lina Bo Bardi, a former editor for the Gio Ponti-founded magazine Domus, set up shop in São Paulo, designing elegant, flexible chairs set on slim metal frames.
This was the heady scene into which Rodrigues, the son of an artistically prominent Rio de Janeiro family, arrived after graduating in 1952 from the national university. He established Oca Industries in 1955, a company that would become the preeminent maker of modernist furniture in Brazil. When architects Lúcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer were tasked in 1956 with the whirlwind project to plan, design and build the new capital, Brasília, in five years, they used Rodrigues’s early chairs, with their softly-contoured lines and caned seats and backrests, to furnish many of the buildings.
Rodrigues would realize the true expression of his talents in — and garner international awards and acclaim with — his Mole chair of 1957. The word mole means "soft" in Portuguese, but can be interpreted as "easygoing" or even "listless." Rodrigues's chair features a sturdy, generously proportioned frame of the native South American hardwood jacaranda, upholstered with overstuffed leather pads that flap like saddlebags across the arms, seat, and backrest. It is a chair that invites sprawling — perfect for the social milieu of the bossa nova and caipirinha cocktails; where a languorous afternoon spent chatting and joking is the apex of enjoyment.
Most of the estimated 1,200 armchairs, sofas, tables, storage cabinets and dining tables Rodrigues designed in his long career are imbued, in one way or another, with this air of robust relaxation. Sergio Rodrigues was a designer true to the temperament of his people.
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