Grandson of a famous sculptor and nephew of the creator of pure design, Antonio Llambias, opened “Valuarte” his study of interior design and limited editing furniture.
In a pH of Recoleta, Antonio “Toto” Llambias premieres his interdisciplinary study. The industrial designer began working on this project during the pandemic, and after remodeling an old seamstress workshop to turn it into its place of inspiration and work, Valuarte opened.
Grandson of the renowned sculptor, Carol Navarro Ocampo, son of an interiorist successful and nephew of the creator of pure design, Dolores Navarro Ocampo, Undoubtedly, his formation began from the crib. “I come from a very aesthetic family. There are families who talk about politics at the table, others of philosophy when they meet.
The creativity gene
His maternal last name is well known in the field: Navarro Ocampo. His grandfather Carol was the one who opened that saga of creative people in the family tree, when he began taking drawing classes with the teacher Francisco Vidalwho said he taught him to look for himself and to express himself.
“Of him inherited fanaticism for chimneys and stairs. In the ACA there are low -relief of yours. And the nautical of San Isidro has its armchairs, because my grandfather also made furniture designs. Since I was a child I was constantly contact with his work, my house was full of prototypes, there were marble busts and spatulas, virgins, drawings. He lived at night, wrote, sculpted, thought”He comments.
With his grandfather he also joins the taste for writing -Antonio writes a poem of each of his creations -, experimentation with the archaic and the taste for Mayan symbology: “The element that I love is the pyramid, when I was in Chichen Itzá I was fascinated, also when I was in San Pablo, who with his brutalism also took me to the inclined line“.
“So when Laura Orcoyen summoned me to design an exterior furniture capsule for the 25 years of her brand, I made the AO25 series: a pyramid game of different heights living together in a patio of plants. I saw it as a sample of the different kingdoms … the line invents the human being. To her who makes everything soft, round inside, I proposed to do the opposite to outside”, Continues Antonio.
-The family home is still preserved on the summit. His grandfather was Cordoba and his childhood house was always a meeting point for artists and writers. At 19 he came to Buenos Aires to study at the Superior School of Fine Arts and a year after arriving in the National Spring Hall, then he settled in a neighboring workshop to the Leguizamón Pondal plastic artist, who was very close. Until the great Quinquela Martín visited his atelier.
“My aunt and godmother, Dolores Navarro Ocampo, was someone who did a lot for the Argentine design and partly proud. I feel that story continues. By rebound it touches me. I grew up talking about artistic currents, why something is Art Deco or rationalist, these issues were played at Christmas. There is an innate sensitivity that for example never happened to music, although I studied and touched much I have no one in the family of that stick ”, Antonio recounts, and clarifies that his instrument is bass.
“I am a deep grateful of what my family of artists gave me, a timeless language, speaking with their own language, without falling into ephemeral idioms. I don’t know if they are gifts, it’s information, then everyone sees what he does with it. I founded my Valuarte study because I try to generate concepts and that the environments make sense. That is the nice thing about interior design, that I can see you from your space”, He maintains. This happens with the decorative proposals that he conceives – such as private home on Alvear Avenue – and with the furniture he designs. Singularity. The balance with movement.
The new terrible enfant of Argentine design
As a rock star, dolls, rings and some chains are part of their look. In tune with the predilection for iron and aluminum in their designs. “The brand started with me exploring a material that is the steel iron, the first line that I designed part of there. It was in 2020, in full confinement. When I finished the faculty, I started looking for work, which is generally difficult for an industrial designer, more in pandemic, so I set out to do something with my time. I started from the folded sheet that had been investigating in the race. I had almost obsessed with her, I used it for any project to ask us. Thus the first series was born. Everything started with a table, I knew that I wanted the corners to be open, I put the name Jasmine, like my sister”, Says Toto, as friends and customers call him.
What is Valuarte?
It is not a store. Not a showroom. It is a study speakeasy: That is, when you pass through the door of Sanchez de Bustamante 2338 it is not known what happens inside. Spoiler Alert: Everything is created so that when you are surprised. After a very expressive prelude that the Valuarte manifesto tells, the work space and inspiration opens on the first floor, which can be visited by previous appointment, from Monday to Friday, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
There the works of art continue, they currently have the work of nine artists, such as ceramists, sculptors and photographers. “We have a curatorship and we are putting together temporary exhibitions. It is like a b side of the study that is great. Thus we put together a collaborative sample that we rotate every four months”, dice.
Of course there are his iconic pieces, which during these four years took care of developing and perfecting until he opened his own Usina. A furniture factory with culture, to add value to specific materials, which are usually associated with the design orphanhood: “It bothers me when people determine what a noble material is and what not. Then, I grab one of the most industrial materials – which is steel 10 10, as one of the collections is called – and from the design I give value. Thus the brand was established, much of what we work is cut to laser”, He concludes.
