Marcelo Villegas: Space Invadin' Bamboo Furniture
by on 02.28.05
You're average bamboo chair is just that: Average. Unfortunately, lots of bamboo furniture, held back by the small size and boring linearity of the building material, just doesn't fire up furniture addicts. Somewhere along the line, this has caused chairs and tables made from the venerable "builder's grass" to be looked down on as cheap and chintzy. But Marcos Villegas is looking to swing that prejudice around with some bamboo that looks as though it was grown in an alien colony...
Villegas is a craftsman working out of Manizales, Colombia. Rather than trying to slice, split, and plane bamboo into a rectangle that fits the current modern aesthetic, he went for more of a log-cabin style. But by using bamboo rootstalks, and large old-growth beams, his furniture takes on a much more elegant, finished quality than it would if it were made of gnarled oak or knotty pine. These chairs have the bulk to hold up visually to any space, from a rustic cabin, to a Miesian Apartment. Your best bet for getting one of these beautiful pieces is to contact him through his website.
:: Bamboo Chairs by Marcelo Villegas [by DM]
That's Marcelo Villegas not Marcos. His furniture is not generally in production he will custom build things from time to time, these are pieces of art very valuable and expensive. The most essential part of his furniture is the bronze hardware that he custom designed and poured in his foundry. The other element of importance is the rhizomes that he uses, very hard to get and extremely difficult to treat for insect attacks. The Colombian Government in that region is very strict about the harvest of Guadua Angustifolia Bamboo requiring special permits. The removal of rhizomes is almost impossible unless the land is being cleared for a roads ect... Besides visiting his web site you can go to http://flickr.com and type in Marcelo Villegas or koolbamboo where I have prepared a photo set of his pictures with his permision as well as photos of the large structures he has built.His book New Bamboo is available on Amazon, which also has many pictures of his work with Simon Velez, and his unique take on the art of furniture craft.