Q+A #013: Stanley Quaia [Gallery & Studio Director + Consultant]
💐 Floral Display Units 🪤Roberto Gerosa 💆♂️Calming Yet Creative Headspaces 🪢 Object Match-Making 🏭 Tiny Three-Story-House 🛋️ Italian Design-dealers 'Bible'
‘Storied Spaces’ is the RIALTO newsletter featuring ‘Q+A’, a bi-weekly column that features guest curators from the community, whom we invite to share inspiration from their home library. In each edit, you will hear from creatives we admire about the analogue inspirations that inform their work and vision.
Stanley Quaia is the Gallery & Studio Director at Béton Brut, a London based design gallery primarily presenting historic design-led furniture. Since joining Béton Brut over eight years ago he developed its contemporary design arm, working with designers aligned philosophically and aesthetically to create exclusive and often limited edition bodies of work. He also works across the design and art industry consulting on a wide range of projects under his practice Heavy Duty Services.
Instagram: @stanley.quaia @betonbrutlondon @heavy_duty_services
Q+A
[001] What is your favourite piece in your collection?
Without doubt my favourite piece is the Rampa, designed in 1965 by designers and brothers Pier & Achille Castiglione. The Castiglione’s were inspired by the display units used by florists commonly found in the famous squares of Italian cities. It is a movable double sided cabinet. Pushed against a wall or wheeled out, it can be used as a desk, storage unit and display plinth.
It cuts a very pleasing graphic side profile and is a joy to live with. I have owned three of these over the years and I love the quality feel of the materials and mechanisms specified on the vintage ones. The Rampa was originally made from Jacaranda wood by Bernini, a renowned manufacturer of highly crafted precision-engineered furniture.
I would note however, that Rampa doesn’t fit through a standard door, as a result, my main search criteria when looking for somewhere to live is the width of its front door.
[002] What has piqued your interest lately?
The work of architect and designer Roberto Gerosa. I had seen photographs of his work in disparate fragments spread out over years. But a random mention of his work during dinner with friends in Milan gave me that six degrees moment that saw me meeting up with Roberto a few days later. He welcomed me into his incredible home and studio in Milan, converted from a carpentry workshop. We had lunch then he showed me all his handmade lamps dotted around his densely layered dreamlike interior. Roberto’s distinctive aesthetic mixes traditional forms with relaxed imaginative handmade construction details and materials.
By freakish coincidence, a week later I stayed in a property he designed in Venice, a vast one bedroom apartment in an old converted storage space. Living in it for four days with my partner and baby gave me the chance to truly absorb his work. Filled with a sense of drama, the theatre stage-like layout and incorporation of materials such as vintage mirrors, patterned textiles and crushed brass has left a lasting impression. Living in the space also highlighted that his work doesn’t just look good in photographs. It was highly functional, executed to an extremely high standard and inspired a calming yet creative headspace.
[003] Best piece you ever got extremely cheap?
I think the best piece was something I found in my Nonna’s garage so it didn’t cost me anything. Design runs through my family: my mum was a textile designer, my dad a furniture designer, my grandmother an antiques dealer, and my uncle Paolo dealt in Italian mid-century design. In the 80s and early 90s, my uncle would drive over vans full of Italian design to sell to London dealers, returning to Italy with English antiques for my Nonna to sell over there. When she moved back to Italy fulltime to retire, I cleared her garage out and found a few design gems that were forgotten about, too broken to sell or in need of tricky restorations.
The star of these finds was a pair of AM/AS series wall lights designed by Franco Albini, Franca Helg and Antonio Piva in the 1960s. They were manufactured from plated steel with opal glass shades by my favorite lighting manufacturer Sirrah. The design is notable for being very well made and for featuring an innovative pin connection that allows the light to be an uplighter, downlighter or both at the same time.
[004] What’s the one that got away?
There are too many examples to pick from, it is almost a weekly occurrence. Working with vintage design, you quickly learn that you can’t dwell long on the ones that got away. Instead I try to keep in focus the ones that have gone well. For me, that is not guided by return on investment but instead the strength of matching pieces to the new owner/interior.
A nice example of this began when I visited my friend Harald Bichler, founder of Rauminhalt gallery in Vienna, we went to his storage facility, on the outskirts of the city. Within this enormous crumbling factory building was an amazing collection of design and fine art.
I spotted a stack of terracotta flower pots that incrementally increased in both diameter and height. Harold mentioned this was an early piece by Jasper Morrison made whilst he was studying at the RCA. Now missing its top, I thought it would have extremely little appeal to most people. I managed to reunite it with Jasper and he remade the table top. Subsequently, it featured within his 2022 London Design Festival exhibition called ‘early work’.
[005] Can you tell us a bit about your home?
This is the tiny three story house I lived in for 5 years in Shoreditch East London with my partner prior to having a baby. The property didn’t have a single right angle in it, everything was weirdly shaped which made it a fun challenge to furnish. I was initially drawn to the fact that each of the three floors came with a distinct look. The ground floor living room was completely lined with sandblasted wooden planks. The top floor bedroom had a pitched roof with very old exposed handmade brick walls. The basement kitchen was a concrete cave with a gnarly wooden ceiling formed from the joists from the floor above.
Due to the awkward size and shape of the property, the first task was making a functional layout. This proved hard initially but after a few months things began to fall into place. An added layer of complexity was the fact that a lot of the things I was living with were in constant flux as I would buy and sell pieces. There was a strong theme to what I was living with as I am particularly drawn to Italian design of the 60s, 70s and 80s due to there being a great depth of boundary pushing forms and typologies that are beautifully manufactured.
I. ‘Repertorio del Design Italiano 1950-2000: Per L’Arredamento Domestico’ by Giuliana Gramigna
The three books I have selected are the ones I am constantly revisiting on a monthly basis. The Repertorio is a bible for dealers of Italian design. Giuliana Gramigna was a great designer and important design academic and the Repertorio is a very thorough two volume survey of furniture and lighting produced in Italy over 50 years.
II. ‘Pierre Chareau: Designer and Architect’ by Brian Brace Taylor
Pierre Chareau occupies a special place in my head. He seamlessly worked across architecture, interiors, furniture, and lighting with a coherent design language. His work is materially and technically innovative, yet consistently grounded in the practical realities of living. He combines industrial materials with careful attention to scale, movement, and privacy. I am particularly drawn to his wall table made from iron and wood that allows its user the ability to slide it along a horizontal axis.
III. ‘Carlo Scarpa: Architecture and Design’ by Guido Beltramini & Italo Zannier
Carlo Scarpa doesn’t need an introduction. All I can say is I have tried my best to visit as many of his projects as possible and I am yet to find one that disappoints. Bold, impactful architecture woven together by innovative layouts and awe inspiring detailing. The spaces he designs simply feel great to be in.
IG Accounts to follow?
– @grace___prince
– @tuttobenestudio
– @jasper.morrison
– @magalireus
– @m_r.a.a.d
– @david__horan
