The good news for Rui Alves is that he remains our favourite Portuguese furniture designer.....
..... but the competition is out there.
Made Out Portugal is a show from 6 young Portuguese designers who all live, work and study in Holland.
During our conversation with some of the participants it turned out that the Portuguese government offers it's design students extremely generous grants to go and study overseas.
Which of course they all then do.
As a consequence a network of Portuguese designers appears to be building across Europe - a bit like some dangerous organisation that James Bond would be expected to defeat.
Made Out Portugal is the first attempt at making use of this network for the benefit of all the Portuguese diaspora. Whereas Made Out Portugal #1 is only Dutch based designers, plans are already afoot for further shows featuring Portuguese designers living and working in other countries.
And if all there shows are as good as #1 we wont be complaining.
A nice mix of conceptual and product design one of the highlights for us was Dock Lamp by Manuel Netto. Essentially a wooden lamp "frame" with three "live" sockets and one "dead" . The user simply takes the bulb holder out and replaces it where they want for optimal light.
Or lights out.
The version we saw was the floor version. There is however apparently also a table version. Which sounds even more promising, for example, as a reading lamp that you can have a sofa lamp and then carry through to use as a bedside lamp. And simply move the bulb position to suit the use.
The absolute star of Made Out Portugal #1 for us however was Spore Vase by Paulo Sellmayer.
But that was so good, it has earned it's own post.
Made out Portugal #1 can be viewed at Smalle Haven, Eindhoven until October 31st.
