All Photos By Gail

For the famed furniture designers, brothers Fernando and Humberto Campana, startling materials are a hallmark of their design practice. Often evoking the rich street-market culture of their native Brazil, they utilize everyday elements in unexpected ways, such as this looped red cord for the opulent pile upholstery of this Vermelha (Red) chair (2007).

The Campana brothers are most celebrated for their design of the Vermelha chair — an iconic piece handmade from a huge length of rope, wrapped and woven to create the chair’s nest-like structure. “The Vermelha chair is an homage to chaos,” says Humberto. “It’s a portrait of Brazil, a melting pot of culture and races…and I try to manifest this idea into a kind of chair that is chaotic in its very construction.” The chair was the first piece of work exhibited by Brazilians at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Their studio continues to produce and develop furniture made from ordinary everyday materials that have been discarded, such as rope, fabric, wood, cardboard, plastic tubes, and aluminum wire.

Photographed in the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum in NYC.