A Second Life
Maria Abando Olaran’s lamps are made out of wool which would otherwise go to waste (image: Maria Abando Olaran).
At first glance, the hanging lamps look alive. Light shines through their mottled hides, which are sculpted into the shape of a seed pod, giving the mysterious impression of a womb carrying life. “They look even more [like wombs] in the dark,” María Abando Olaran says, gesturing to the overhead lighting that surrounds her designs at Feria Hábitat Valencia, an annual international furniture and lighting fair. “In dimmer light, they look very warm.”
Abando Olaran makes her pieces out of wool from her family’s farm in Mallorca, and when the lamps are switched off altogether they reveal their material more blatantly, becoming opaque and fluffy like cartoon sheep. Although domestic sheep have been selectively bred by humans to grow excess wool, and therefore require shearing in order to maintain their health and comfort, sheep in Europe are typically only farmed for meat and milk production, as the wool they produce is too coarse for commercial clothing. “The wool is considered animal waste,” Abando Olaran says, and in order to make use of it, she taught herself how to make felt using online tutorials. “The fibre has scales, and when it is washed with soap and hot water they open, and when it is rubbed they come together,” she explains. “It’s the same process as when you put a jumper into the washing machine and it comes out small.”
Abando Olaran’s hanging lamps exhibited at Feria Hábitat Valencia (image: Maria Abando Olaran).
Abando Olaran sees her work as an example of biomimicry, which she describes as taking inspiration from nature to “[obtain] maximum performance with minimum effort, both in the use of energy and material.” Making wool felt doesn’t require complex technology, and the material is strong enough to hold its own shape without the need for an internal support structure. Abando Olaran’s lamps are also inspired by natural forms, and they benefit from the sound-absorbing, flame resistant and insulating qualities of wool. Her work is shown in the Nude (New Spanish Design) section of the fair, a space dedicated to highlighting the work of emerging designers and design schools, and many of the projects exhibited focus on reuse and recycling, such as Aurora Bonet Prieto’s lampshades made out of woven plastic bags, and Circle, a project by a group of students at the Technical University of Valencia making cushions and lampshades using donated canvas tote bags.
The rest of the fair is dedicated to displaying work from established brands, and the sense of innovation promoted by Nude also shone through in brands with decades-long histories who are now trying their hand at reinventing themselves. Martínez y Orts, for instance, has been producing ornate light fixtures since 1905, with projects including chandeliers in royal palaces and high-end hotels, but the company’s new brand MYO eschews gold and brass in favour of a more contemporary aesthetic, sculpting steel mesh to look like the ripple of a wave or a downfall of rain. “Traditional style is based mainly on ornamentation, and it was for somebody who wants to ascend to heaven and feel like God,” designer Juan Orts says, referring to the links between embellishment and Catholicism. But MYO is less concerned with grasping for perfection as it is with capturing the sense of wonder that light can evoke; one collection, for example, takes inspiration from eclipses, with metal discs laid over gold mesh to give the effect of a halo of sunlight. “By playing with iridescence, light and shadows, we try to add the human part to the light,” Orts explains. “Not only the function, but also the emotion.”
MYO’s lamps are made from steel mesh, a more contemporary choice than the gold and brass favoured by Martínez y Orts (image: MYO).
While Martínez y Orts decided to start a new brand, another Valencian company, Lladró, has successfully navigated reinvention within the same identity it established in 1953. Lladró was originally known for its ornate porcelain figurines that draw on cultural and religious traditions, and which often resemble fairytale illustrations, such as a couple mid-waltz or a horse with a golden mane. But the company's 2023 lighting collection, designed by Italian designer Luca Nichetto, took inspiration from balloons to create contemporary versions of some of Lladró’s traditional products. “Street artists who take a balloon and make, for instance, a dog or maybe a chair, whatever[…] in a way they are creating abstract constructions of an existing object,” Nichetto told Lladró Magazine. “So, the idea was to create a sort of character from the typical products that Lladró having been making for many years, especially big chandeliers.” Like balloon animals, Nichetto’s table lamp and chandelier designs are configured from sequences of inflated ovals, which make their materials appear light and airy. Taking advantage of Lladró’s skilful detailing, the lamps have patterns that reference the indentations of inflatable mattresses people use on the beach, and the texture combined with their unusual shape makes them look like fruiting cactus trees.
Designer Luca Nichetto’s collection for Lladró reimagined the brand’s traditional products in balloon shapes (image: Lladró).
Trade fairs offer an important business support for the design industry, providing a platform for brands to display commercial products such as Viccarbe’s cosy lounge chairs which feature ruched upholstery in the shape of a smile, or Ondarreta’s plump modular sofa inspired by gummy bears. Next to such polished projects, Abando Olaran’s work with wool feels like an entirely different beast, something much younger, scrappier and outside of the mainstream. Yet brands such as MYO and Lladró show that reinvention can come at any age: MYO is only five years old, for example, a paltry number compared to Martínez y Orts’s 199 years, while Lladró’s fresh collection was born from a child-like admiration for the form of balloons. This process of reinvention has now also brought Abando Olaran, who started making her lamps only three years ago after a long career teaching at Majorca design school, a kind of rebirth. “This is my second life,” she grins.