Throughout October, design enthusiasts and PAD and Frieze attendees in the know have been excitedly making their way to a quiet residential street in London’s Marylebone. Here, they step through the door of an ordinary brown-bricked townhouse into the colourful world of Italian-born, London-based designer Martino Gamper.
Almost twenty years’ worth of Gamper's distinctive work is laid out across the Georgian property in staged room sets—including a music room, games room, study, bedroom, living and dining space. Angular furniture pieces covered in a patchwork of laminate and teak, hybridised tables and chairs and temptingly tactile hooks, vessels and lamps are all layered within the home’s neoclassical interiors, creating a joyful tapestry of colour, pattern and eras.
Martino Gamper presents 'Before; After & Beyond’
Titled ‘Before, After & Beyond’, this immersive showcase marks the designer's first full retrospective since the beginning of his career in the mid-2000s. The idea came about following a conversation with former Wallpaper* Editor-in-Chief Sarah Douglas. 'Sarah said, ‘people don’t really know the extent of your work’', Gamper recalls. 'She said ‘I hardly know it, and I’ve known you for twenty years.’' At the same time, Gamper had been going through the mammoth task of archiving and cataloging his work, so a retrospective felt like a natural development.
To bring his vision to life, he worked with Douglas, refining the details, editing the selection and planning new work. From the outset, Gamper was clear he wanted to display his oeuvre in a domestic setting to create a more relaxed mood for the showcase. 'I see so many design shows where people make furniture and then try to present it like art on plinths. I always find it very tedious, because it doesn't tell the story,' he explains. ‘I like telling stories and my pieces are domestic; they are tables and chairs, and they are meant to be used. They have a function.'
Enter Swiss Philanthropist and art collector Maja Hoffman, who has collaborated with Gamper many times over the duration of his career to date. Learning that he was seeking a space for a show in London, she generously offered the use of her 1770s townhouse, designed by Robert and James Adam, featuring Rudolf Stingel-designed carpets and a copper-gilded ceiling on the first floor.
In Gamper’s showcase, we find private commissions, museum projects, industrial designs, unseen work and brand-new creations made especially for the show, including colourful glass lamps, mirrors, a decadent purple velvet bed and a mirror-lined drinks cabinet made from reclaimed teak. The black and white carpet in the games room was a collaboration with Milan-based CC-Tapis and another in the music room was made by Swedish brand Bolon. A site-specific geometric, travertine fireplace, which Gamper created to replace one stolen from the house years ago, will remain permanently.
These new pieces sit seamlessly alongside Gamper's earlier works, such as his magnificent chairs from the 2007 exhibition ‘100 Chairs in 100 Days,’ where he transformed discarded chairs into entirely new forms through playful reassembly. Gamper’s approach is unified by his experimental mindset, characterised by spontaneous creation and recontextualisation of the work of design masters—including his reinterpretation of Gio Ponti and Carlo Mollino furniture. His inventive use of materials and colours transcends decoration, serving instead to emphasise and bring out the unique form and character of each piece.
Born in Merano, a town in the German-speaking South Tyrol region of northern Italy, in 1971, Gamper started as an apprentice with a furniture maker in Merano, before studying sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and then design at the Royal College of Art in London, from where he graduated in 2000. His background in both traditional craftsmanship and contemporary design has served him well and is clearly reflected in his experimental and hands-on approach to creating furniture and objects.
Gamper’s success and influence in the contemporary design world is extensive. He has worked with prestigious brands and institutions and has shown in prominent museums and galleries, yet his style and approach remain grounded and consistent. 'What I’m really enjoying about the show is that I can’t tell which work is old work and which is new,' he reflects. 'The work is like a continuous kind of research, and I think that's, for me, an achievement; it makes it feel timeless in a way.'
Although Gamper now works with three workshops—a joinery workshop in Italy, one in Kent and one next to his studio in Hackney— and has a team of staff, you’ll still find him busy making or scoping out reclamation yards for materials that he can craft into a cabinet door or table leg. Making and material exploration remains at the heart of his practice; he still finds thrill in transforming found materials that are typically perceived as kitsch or dated—think lino, laminate, cherry, teak or formica—into finely crafted pieces of furniture. 'I'm always interested in what is considered kitsch, what is considered contemporary, what is ugly, what is beautiful—it's a subtle line. If you buy brand new materials, it feels a bit like a blank piece of paper somehow, but working from something already existing, there's something to hold on to or to inspire you.'
When we catch up with Gamper, ‘Before, After & Beyond’ is midway through its run, and he’s delighted with the response. Long lunches and dinners have unfolded around his tessellated laminate ‘Lazy Ponti’ and ‘Almost Ponti’ tables in the dining/living area, fostering many catch-ups with colleagues and friends across each room. Gamper smiles as he recalls visitors’ reactions: 'Their eyes get really large, and they say, ‘Wow, did you really make all of this?’' After such a busy period and creating such a vast volume of work—resulting from years of 'saying yes to everything,' he laughs—Gamper admits he’s ready to embrace a slower pace. 'I would like to spend time thinking about my next steps. Maybe do less,' he ventures. 'Do less, by doing more, in a way.'
'Before, After & Beyond' runs until October 26, 2024, at 11 Mansfield Street, London, W1G 9NZ martinogamper.com
