Surreal deal

The next generation at BD Barcelona, a brand renowned for its avant-garde portfolio, look set to shepherd it down a similarly bold path

- ROSA BERTOLI

The story of the founding of BD Barcelona is the stuff of legend: a group of architects, hanging out late one night in 1972 at iconic Barcelona club Boccaccio, decided to start a design brand involving their artist and designer friends. Producing work by the likes of Ettore Sottsass and Vittorio Gregotti (then relative newcomers), as well as reissues of works by surrealist artists Antoni Gaudí and Salvador Dalí, Boccaccio Design (later renamed BD Barcelona) became a creative sensation. Its extensive catalogue has seen some of the world's most celebrated creatives populate its pages, from notable greats like Álvaro Siza Vieira and Alessandro Mendini to more contemporary designers like Konstantin Grcic, Doshi Levien and Jaime Hayon.

The brand was originally founded by the members of architecture practice Studio Per: Pep Bonet, Cristian Cirici, Lluís Clotet and Oscar Tusquets (with Mireia Riera joining the company as interior designer). 'We were influenced by Milanese architects,' explains Tusquets, who had spent time in Milan as part of his work with architects Federico Correa and Alfonso Milá, visiting Triennale in his free time with Gregotti and philosopher Umberto Eco. ‘We noticed that Milanese architects were also designing objects and furniture, so we were inspired to create tables and chairs, but then nobody in Spain was interested in manufacturing our work. So when we completed our architecture studies in the 1960s, we decided to do it ourselves, produce our own projects.’ Their beginnings, says Tusquets, were ‘humble but showy: our designs were crazy!’