06/22/2011

Mobles 114, easy living

JM Massana and JM Tremoleda are the founders, designers and directors of this company which currently has a presence in 50 countries around the world. It specialises in furniture and equipment for the office and home. Its products encompass seating, tables, bookshelves and accessories, all designed and manufactured in accordance with its environmentalist ideology. These tend to be made of a single material, based on structures which are easy to disassemble and recyclable.

Just as we want to know the provenance of our food – what it’s made of and where it’s from – Mobles 114 believes we ought to know what materials and manufacturing processes are used to make the furniture we buy. The company wants there to be a transparency in its working methods, which they see as being the future of the furniture industry as a whole.

Putting its money where its mouth is, at this year’s Milan Furniture Fair, all of Mobles 114’s new products were made from recycled materials –demonstrating to a vast international audience that eco-furniture has come out of the garden sheds of amateurs playing around bits of driftwood or cardboard boxes and into the realm of large-scale, big-time manufacturers.

A key launch was the Green chair by Javier Mariscal, one of Spain’s most respected contemporary designers, which is made from recycled materials and is 100 per cent recyclable. ‘We got a great response to these pieces’, says export manager Marta Tremoleda. ‘We believe the market needs this and we hope that more in the industry will explore working with recycled or more environmentally-friendly materials’

Mobles 114 was launched in 1973 to make distinctive modern furniture that answered people’s needs. In its early years it designed for the residencial market, but today 80 per cent of its products are sold to the contract sector. ‘When we launched, there wasn’t much design effort being put into public or office interiors’, explanis Marta, sister of JM Tremoleda. ‘That’s changed completely and today investment in contract furniture is much greater’.

Although today most of Mobles 114’s designs are intended for public spaces, you only need glance at its catalogue to see that many of its products would look perfect in both a home or office. For example, its Om chair, covered in a fabric by Martín Azúa, is upholstered in such a way as to make it as practical for corporate meeting rooms as for a domestic living room.

Then there’s the Gràcia stool, designed by JM Massana, JM Tremoleda and Eduardo Juanola, made of natural or lacquered wood and with a chromed metal frame. This collection of seats wouldn’t look out of place in a library or next to a breakfast bar in a kitchen.

In the practically 40 years Mobles 114 has existed, its client base has changed. The change is inherent in a sector which must reinvent itself in order to reflect the latest trends and this Catalan company is succeeding in this task. Marta indica que, pese al revés que la crisis económica ha supuesto para todo el sector, en la empresa agradan los resultados conseguidos en los últimos años, que se apoyan sobre “una coherencia entre el diseño, la calidad y el precio”. Adhering to consistently high standards and a commitment to environmentally friendly manufacturing, Mobles 114 wants to continue to make inroads into foreign markets.

COOKIE NOTICE

Mobles 114, easy living

Diary

MOST READ