Founded by two architects—Małgorzata Piotrowska and Monika Niezabitowska—Fawory studio opened its doors in 2010. Both Piotrowska and Niezabitowska graduated from the Politechnika Warszawska (Warsaw Institute of Technology) and also gained experience abroad at universities in Athens and Valencia, respectively. The artists stress the importance of the individual in their work, as they strive to create objects that one can enter into a close relationship with, that one can call one's own. Fawory’s designs emphasize craftsmanship in an age of mass production, as the studio strives to create a harmonious balance between personalization and standardization, claiming ‘it would be valuable for homes equipped with standardized, cookie-cutter products to also contain thought-provoking objects, objects whose use is not automatized’.
Fawory’s dialogue with Polish design of the 50s and 60s assumes very diverse forms. The studio is able to both talk in hushed tones and scream in colourful explosions. Its Recomposition line is based on listening: here the designers are very attentive to the original forms of the armchairs they work with and their interference is reduced to subtle changes in the fabric of the upholstery which preserve the furniture’s original silhouette.
Yet the main thrust of their conversation with furniture engages with its core. In these cases their design process verges on the subversive: rather than putting pieces together, they take them apart. This destruction is necessary in order to redefine an existing object and give it an entirely new skin. Fawory studio plays with colourful materials woven around the exposed bones of their armchairs. When they work with PCV pipes their chairs assume delicate, lace-like silhouettes; when they use safety belts, their armchairs become sturdier and more grounded. The colour and type of weaving applied in each project varies, defining its ultimate character, which might be a sleek silhouette made of monochromatic lines arranged in straight rows or a chaotic jumble formed by an ensemble of juxtaposed lines.
With its Transformation project, prepared by Piotrowska, Niezabitowska and Zofia Hejduk and shown in 2011 at the Łódź Design Festival, Fawory attracted a great deal of attention from both design critics and the public. Commenting on this project, the designers have defined the ultimate goal of their actions as ‘repersonalisation’, claiming that the final product should ‘redefine the relationship between the user and the designer’.
Fawory joined with Michał Piasecki in another project which further explored the idea of a personalized piece of furniture, this time using both manual craftsmanship and computational designing techniques. This union resulted in a series of chairs with clean, almost architectural lines. Pushing themselves even further into the realm of re-used furniture, Fawory has recently taken to renovating old movie theatre seats. Given the eloquence of their dialogues with past design and their talent for creating surprising solutions, this latest conversation promises to be riveting.
www. fawory.com
Author: Agata Morka, November 2013, citation source: Fawory website.
