He's the perfect prototype of the professional industrial designer. Reflexive, methodical, technically prepared and profitable for companies with whom he works. Josep Lluscà studied at the Eina School of Barcelona before man set foot on the moon, he broadened his knowledge at L'École des Arts et Métiers in Montreal, Canada, and set up as a professional in 1972.
In 1990 he won the National Design Award. His highly applauded chair called Andrea certainly had a lot to do with this, as he managed to give a new lease of life to the three-legged chair, achieving good stability in addition to ergonomics and beauty, it was rejected by the company for whom he originally designed it. In 1988, however, it happily found its place in the Andreu World catalogue, and it became a standardbearer in this company’s firm bid for good design. And this is where it stays, as beautiful as ever and newly celebrating its coming-of-age.
Andrea is based on an empirical study of a chair’s centres of gravity. Its pronounced ellipse forming the back and arms prevents strenuous movements that might alter its equilibrium. Without doubt, this is one of its strengths, but not the only one. Taking the Calvet chair by Gaudí as a source of historical reference, Lluscà developed a kind of aesthetic reconciliation in the Andrea chair between memory and the present.
On the one hand, the back and seat in solid wood invites us to enjoy the natural materiality of the object and highlights the organic character of its shape. On the other hand, its metallic structure evokes the technological lightness of our age (with conical tube legs) and the almost ethereal elegance of its precious metals (arms in cast aluminium). Beyond user concepts, this compensation between mass and void seems to provide Andrea with a sculptural image. And beyond its image, as well, its combination of forms and references speak of the sensual qualities associated with the legacies of the Mediterranean material culture.