EUTOPIA: ARGENTINE DESIGN WITH A STRONG PRESENCE IN PINTA MIAMI LIVE 2020
Designed by Francisco Gómez Paz (Salta, Argentina. 1975), the chair has won the prestigious Compasso d’Oro award in Milan and will now have a leading role in Pinta Miami’s virtual edition. Eutopia’s true innovation is being a rigorous industrial product yet produced independently, away from developed industrial systems.
Eutopia is probably the evidence that in times of the 4.0 industrial revolution, it is no longer utopic to think that a project, with its values and complexity, could be born, grown and produced in situations distant from the existing industrial network which normally bears its development and production.
Eutopia has been designed in its object and productive complexity to be mass produced using flexible technologies such as laser cutting, numerical control and 3D printing. Paradoxically, what could have been an extremely limited project scenario became, by virtue of time and experimentation, a free creative situation that has been able to transform a style strongly influenced by underground technologies into new expressive values
Eutopia has a sophisticated structure which does not become obvious: it is the result of a complex inlaid work, a kind of tridimensional solid wood multi-laid marquetry. The chair is made up of four pieces of multi-laid wood that intersect in a strong cross inset and separate again in the seat, allowing different planes to work in its own force direction to hold the seat and the armrests.
Small inset inventions and glued pieces allow the chair to be assembled without any nails or screws. This allows the creation of an extremely resistant wooden chair which surprisingly weighs just 1,800 grams. The wood used for the chair is Paulownia, a material with surprising qualities such as resistance, lightness and sustainability. Besides, it is taken from one of the trees with the highest capacity of absorption of pollutants. “All this makes of Eutopia a meticulous industrial product despite being entirely produced in my lab”, explains Francisco, talking about his studio in Salta.
Eutopia from Francisco Gomez Paz on Vimeo.
Born in Salta, Argentina in 1975, Francisco Gómez Paz lives and works in Milan. After obtaining the Industrial Design degree at the Universidad Nacional de Cordoba, he moved to Milan in 1998 where he attends the Master in Design at Domus Academy. In 2004 he opened his design studio there and has since developed products for leading design companies such as Artemide, Driade, Danese, Landscape Forms, Lensvelt, Luceplan, Olivetti and Sector among others.
His work has received several international recognitions such as the Good Design Award 2010 and the Red Dot Award 2010 and 2016; and has been honored together with Alberto Meda with the First Prize of the Index Award for the Solar Bottle, which has also been selected for the MOMA’s Study Collection. Recently, he received the Prize of Prizes to Innovation in Design from Italy’s president Giorgio Napolitano for the Hope chandelier and the prestigious Compasso d’Oro 2011.
He is active in the fields of research and education, he is visiting professor at Domus Academy since 2000 and has held lectures in Italy and abroad. His projects have been exhibited in several international events and published by main design publications. Francisco’s approach to design is driven by his own curiosity, the knowledge of technology and materials and a highly experimental hands-on creative process.
