Sergio Rodrigues

Sergio Roberto Santos Rodrigues was born in Rio de Janeiro on September 22 in 1927 was a remarkable personality, who was a true Brazilian carioca (a demonym used to refer to anything related to the City of Rio de Janeiro) architect and designer. Along with Joaquim Tenreiro and José Zanine Caldas, Rodrigues was the pioneer to transform the Brazilian design in industrial design and make it known worldwide.

After graduating from the Faculdade Nacional de Arquitetura in Rio de Janeiro in 1951, Rodrigues went out in a "frantic search," as he himself put it, for a type of design that could represent the spirit "of our people." In architecture, his designs were made in order for "life to happen in there." He broke away from paradigms to invent his own language in search of the Brazilian identity and harmoniously integrated the three areas in which he militated: architecture, design, and drawing.

Rodrigues eventually moved to Curitiba, where he co-founded Móveis Artesanal Paranaense in partnership with the Hauner brothers. Although it received a lot of attention as it was the first modern furniture store in Curitiba, the store wasn’t a success. In 1955 the designer, who by now had returned to his home town Rio de Janeiro, established OCA, one of the most influential and largest furniture manufacturers ever in Brazil, a store that heralded a new phase in the production of Brazilian furniture.

During the peak of his career in the 1950s and 60s, he created furniture designs in accordance with modernism, bringing the Brazilian identity into his projects, both in the design and in the form of traditional materials – leather, wood and rattan – exalting his native culture. Rodrigues’s most famous creation, the Mole armchair, designed in 1957 represents his ideals: comfortable and robust, it expresses a clear desire to create furniture that is connected with the Brazilian soul. In a time when thin feet and toothpick-shaped legs ruled, the design of the Mole contrasted starkly; with a thick and sturdy frame, leather straps that form a basket to hold the leather cushions, the design is seen by many as a very “Brazilian way of sitting”. The Mole armchair is also part of the Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA) collection in New York and is coveted to this day.

In 1968 Rodrigues left OCA, but kept creating designs from his home studio, ranging from furniture for hotels, residential and work environments to systems of pre-fabricated homes. He collected not only drawings of his projects, but also humorous illustrations of his furniture, of everyday scenes and of himself. In the words of the designer Fernando Mendes de Almeida about his teacher, friend and cousin, highlight the importance of the creator:

"Sergio Rodrigues' dimensions as an artist and public figure become eternal and blend in with our life history and with the history of the nation itself. Few Brazilian artists defended our culture, our way of life, and the way we are for so long and with such determination. Few designers had such a long productive life."

Sergio Rodrigues passed away in 2014 in Rio de Janeiro. ~H.

Interesting literature:

Sergio Rodrigues, Soraia Cals, Icatu, Brazil, 2000