gt2p’s Furniture Series Imaginary Geographies Is An Ode To Chilean Landscapes
- Name
- gt2p
- Project
- Imaginary Geographies
- Images
- gt2p
- Words
- Devid Gualandris
Titled ‘Imaginary Geographies’, the furniture collection by Chilean design collective gt2p (great things to people) is a digitally-informed material reconstruction of the iconic geography of the Andes Mountain range, which runs north to south along Chile’s border with Argentina.
“The Andes Range is our natural frontier to the east, running from the northern border of Chile to Santiago. This is the geography that separates us from the world. The mountains mold our culture, and loom large in our national imagination, both geographically and visually,” explains the Santiago-based collective about the inspiration behind the project. To evoke elements associated with their home country, they employed technology and digital fabrication techniques to create lines from sounds and convert these into striking furniture objects. “The project’s starting point is an audio composition of the sound of the mountain range mixed with the verses of ‘The Imaginary Man’ by the late great poet Nicanor Parra,” they explain. Subjected to digital manipulation, these sounds are used as the basis for a set of carved profiles. “The final realization involves the introduction of these curves on material surfaces, using CNC carving techniques,” they continue.
The two pieces of the collection feature distinct transformations of geographical images into solid geometry. Made with Chilean lenga wood, also known as ‘Patagonian cherry’, the circular Coffee Table consists of a textured spiral expanding from an inner black basalt circle, offset to one side of the table top, that gradually descends into a flat expansive surface. The pale wood Credenza features parallel carving routes, resulting in a clear visual impression of the passage of the metal hand tool. Its textured surface presents an uneven pattern at the top of the cabinet, resulting in an irregular edge into which black sandblasted basalt is embedded; towards the bottom of the cabinet, the parallel grooves are instead regularized, resembling a Greek column.
Images © gt2p