#Product Trends
High-end Designer Armchair with History for Collectors
ArtesMoble makes it possible for you to furnish and add a touch of high-end design to your professional office and your home with an unique high quality armchair designed by José Luis Pérez Ortega, this armchair is exhibited in the best Spanish design museums, such as National Museum of Decorative Arts in Madrid since 2020 and the Museum of Design in Barcelona since 1994.
The frailero armchair is an aesthetic, functional and decorative piece of furniture with its own history, signed and serialized, suitable for collectors and designer lovers.
The frailero armchair is an exclusive art piece linked to the history of Spanish design. This project was brought to life by Artespaña, a Spanish public company that eagerly promoted the quality of Spanish industrial design abroad. In the 1980s Artespaña contacted the most renowned Spanish designers to design pieces of furniture under the following criteria:
•Use noble materials
•Apply high quality technical manufacturing processes
•Recover the traditional Spanish design
•Highlight the mastery of Spanish craftsmanship.
Among all the pieces of furniture designed, Artespaña chose the frailero armchair designed by José Luis Pérez Ortega, an unique art piece inspired by the austere armchair XVI, that features simple structure, lineal design and high quality materials, today it remains a design furniture in demand, which belongs to the permanent collection of the Barcelona Design Museum and Madrid National Decorative Arts. ArtesMoble manufactures the original piece signed and serialized by the designer
Once upon a time, there was a country called Spain, ruled by kings who used to sit on chairs of austere design, from which the kings dominated seas and markets,
The name "Frailero" comes from its convent origin in 16th century Spanish Italy, focused on the evangelization of the territories annexed to the Spanish crown. The austere friar's chair became one of the most common types of chairs of the time. Seated on these armchairs, Kings, Viceroys and authorities dominated seas and trade in the name of Christianity and the King of Spain, managing this empire in the five continents: Europe, America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It was one of the greatest empires in the universal history because of its vast extension, with its own weaknesses and strengths, spreading Christianity, the Spanish language and the Greco-Roman culture throughout the world.
The frailero armchair displays three distinctive features: The stainless steel tubular structure, the backrest and seat upholstered in black or white Leather and the Spanish walnut wood carved armrest.
The frailero armchair is made of stainless steel structure in different epoxy finished, the armrests are stained with the exclusive finishes of the ArtesMoble’s high quality furniture collection, this design can also be lacquered any color of the RAL chart to suit any personal décor style. The entire design, of great formal simplicity, is linear and austere, elegantly embellished with armrest in carved and turned wood. At this point, the furniture acquires its most ambiguous and ironic meaning, as each piece formally reproduces the delicate volute of a violin, attributing to it a new feature which is not so far removed from its essentially tactile relationship with the user.
As Mr. José Luis Pérez Ortega says: "I took as a reference point the pieces of furniture exhibited at the Greco House in Toledo, without the leather trimmings and the geometric carvings. so I designed a similar volumetry chair more defined by a metallic structure without ornaments, leaving the arms in exposed wood as a reference to the past "As a Relic"
The frair’s chair shares with our design a simplified structure and the use of Walnut wood. The austere Monastic design was imposed by the functionality demanded of the furniture. Thus, The leather seat and backrest were flexible without frames for an easy folding or disassembly. The armrests were straight and flat with an austere volute as a transgressor feature that epitomizes the armchair
The author of this wonderful piece, Mr. José Luis Pérez Ortega, studied architecture at the University, and graduated from the School of Arts and Crafts with a major in Interior Design . He later moved to Milan where he graduated as an Industrial Designer from the "Scuola Politecnica di Design” in Milan as a student of Bruno Munari. He collaborated with the architect Gianfranco Frattini in Milan, and with the manufacturer of high quality furniture "Bernini". He developed architecture, interior and industrial design projects. "I wanted to get to know the industrial process and see all the manufacturing phases, from the moment the raw material enters the factory until the finished piece of furniture appears," says José Luis Pérez Ortega. For a year, he worked on the development of prototypes of architects' furniture with Carlo Scarpa at the Ghianda prototype workshop in Milan, then he returned to Madrid where he set up his own studio dedicated to industrial design and interior design. During his time in New York he collaborated with the Italian lighting company Artemide and the American company Kron
Founder of Experimental School of Industrial Design in Madrid, together with architect Miguel Durán Loriga. He was professor of "initiation to projects" at the European Institute of Design in Madrid. Professor of projects and product design at the School of Art 12 Industrial Design in Madrid, now converted into a Graduate School of Design with university degree, an achieved dream for which he worked hard since the founding of the Experimental School in 1984. In 2005, he was awarded the Castilla-La Mancha Design Award in recognition of his professional career. Currently, he has brought together the concept of "Art - Design", he makes exhibitions of drawings, paintings and sculptures, such as "The line in search of form" in the Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, and teaches courses in different schools and universities in Spain and abroad.
According to the designer, each of his works has been a personal challenge where the human factor and the technical conditioning factors are important. His works have both functional and symbolic value, looking for wholeness and durability over time, conveying a certain mystery and romanticism. He has collaborated with national and international design companies such as: Artespaña, Kron, Artemide, Bernini, Akaba, DO+CE, Arcos, Diseño Cabanes, Fiora and now, together with ArtesMoble, he launched the Frailero, an iconic design with Spanish hallmark.
