Fondation Carmignac Design Parade Endowment awarded to Materra-Matang

Design Parade is a renowned destination for contemporary art in southeastern France, organised annually by Villa Noailles, an early modernist house built for art patrons Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles. Jean-Pierre Blanc founded and presently directs this design festival, and Pascale Mussard serves as the chairperson. The design event takes place simultaneously in Toulon where the focus is on interior architecture, and in Hyères, exploring contemporary design. Established in 2006, Design Parade Hyères aims to showcase contemporary creations in the field of design to the public and professionals alike. A key highlight of the festival is the annual competition, which features young designers and provides them with unparalleled visibility and support, with the larger goal of bringing contemporary art to the forefront.

Fondation Carmignac, since its establishment in 2018, has been collaborating on artistic projects with Villa Noailles. The Carmignac Collection includes pieces by iconic artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Gerhard Richter, and Martial Raysse. The collection also features a significant number of works by young artists especially from emerging countries. Villa Carmignac is located on the beautiful island of Porquerolles. It has endeavoured to engage various designers to create elements for its public interfaces. Agents M has designed the interior furniture, Samy Rio has crafted garden benches for the Villa, Stéphanie Marin has created seating arrangements, and Benoît Maire has contributed a series of deck chairs to the Villa. Similarly, Edgar Jayet was commissioned to design a series of daybeds, now on display in the gardens of Villa Carmignac. In 2022, Madeleine Oltra and Angelo de Taisne were awarded the first Design Parade Fondation Carmignac Endowment, a design competition that will be held each year, where the designers are to conceive an interior design or furniture design in line with the philosophy of the site. Consequently, the duo was commissioned to design the furniture for the reception area of the Villa.

This year, during the 17th Hyères International Design Festival, Lucien Dumas and Lou-Poko Savadogo were honoured with the Fondation Carmignac Design Parade Endowment on June 25, 2023. Both Lucien Dumas and Lou-Poko Savadogo are architects and cabinet makers, who graduated from École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Versailles. In 2020, Dumas founded MATANG, a collaborative workshop that creates and exists between the realms of architecture and furniture design. Lou-Poko Savadogo is trained in carpentry and tapestry and joined Materra-Matang a year after its foundation. They share the belief that there are no limitations when it comes to scale, function, or form between buildings and furniture. They view manufacturing and design as interconnected. They believe a single constructive detail can serve as the starting point for a project of any scale. Furniture pieces, they believe, should be considered integral elements of architecture, constructed, structured, and assembled in a manner akin to designing a building.

The Paris-based duo has built their process around the utilisation of local materials and craftsmanship. They aim to express skill and culture through their intricate joineries and precise techniques. Au dixième is their project based on extensive research on weaving wood. The furniture is made up of small pieces of wood fastened together by paper rope. A unique translation of the local weaving technique into wooden furniture design. The chest of drawers and the dresser featured in this collection interact with each other through form and colour, while also drawing inspiration from architectural construction principles. The handle of the chest of drawers takes cues from the hood mould, and the finish incorporates the use of charred wood, reminiscent of the traditional Japanese technique called Shou Sugi Ban, commonly used for façades and roofs. These elegant pieces were selected to receive the Design Parade Fondation Carmignac Endowment and will be a part of the Villa Carmignac's interiors.

(Text by Aatmi Chitalia, Intern at STIR)