Daciano da Costa – Quadratura Chair (1971-1972)

Stopped reading, put the book down and sensed a delicate weightless body. Getting up and watching the beauty, the mind flows as an encounter for a precious second.

The fusion of the anthropomorphic with the construction of the rational is solved in the Quadratura line through the connection between two distinct dimensions: the union between the delicate, almost dematerialized structure and the support surfaces revealing evanescence, based on the minimal expression of its formal complexity.

Quadratura chair was developed in 1971-1972 for the cafeteria of the Documentation Center of the LNEC (National Civil Engineering Laboratory) as part of the interior design intervention, which also included the furniture of the congress hall, meeting rooms, exhibition hall, library. Produced in the Metalúrgica da Longra with the chrome steel structure, seat and back in wood covered in black leather, the Quadratura chair has other support elements such as table, sideboard, bench and shelf.
The Quadratura line was born at a time when Tomaz Maldonado stated the need to “determine the possibilities and also the limits of our contribution” as designers. Daciano da Costa (Lisboa, 1930-2005) architect, designer, painter, and professor emerges as a reference in the area of Equipment Design in Portugal promoting interior architecture as a global project. Faithful to his practice of “Design in context” he made interventions through is life at the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Centro Cultural de Belém, Expo 98, Casa da Música and many other iconic spaces in the Portuguese panorama.

At present Quadratura chair can be found in its original state in the CCB (Centro Cultural de Belém) as a result of the equipment and furniture project that Daciano da Costa developed in 1990-1992 for this space.

Author: Fátima Pombo

Photo: João Castro