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WORLD DESIGN SPOTLIGHT: «The Koi carp»
After a track record of 25 years and more than 35 national and international awards, in 2020 the National Design Award fell to the lighting firm LZF, recognizing a track record that has been distinguished by its strong commitment to design culture, its creative spirit, its technological innovation and its carefully handcrafted processes.
Founded by Mariví Calvo and Sandro Tothill, LZF has used wood veneer, its most characteristic raw material, from the outset as the tool to express its values. With it, the firm shows its commitment to ecology, sustainability and innovation.
As its founders explain, they use wood “because it is an ancestral element, which is related to nature and fire”. And through light, wood connects intimately with our emotions and feelings.
On the occasion of World Design Capital Valencia 2022, the firm is exhibiting the Life-Size collection at the Museo de Bellas Artes (Museum of Fine Arts) of Valencia until October. There, visitors can see the most sculptural and artisanal pieces of LZF, made with the classic wood carving technique used by falla artisans, known as “vareta”.
Since the presentation in 2015 of Koi, the spectacular illuminated fish measuring more than 3.5 metres in length, the collection has grown to include various new models, such as the Big Bird.
LZF’s particular creative vision of wood brings to life unique, high-quality lamps, functional and beautiful pieces that are handmade by craftsman highly skilled in working with wood veneer. They always follow a refined handcrafted process, combined with avant-garde technologies that give the firm’s designs functionality and beauty, which led to their winning the National Crafts Award in 2011.
LZF maintains the spirit with which it was founded in 1994. From its modest beginnings, that small workshop has grown and now, no longer so small, it is housed in a renovated former winery in Chiva (Valencia).
The firm has an ample and extensive network of external designers, gathered over the years, and a multidisciplinary team of artists formed by established talents and promising youngsters from the national and international panorama.
In this respect, LZF acts as a catalyser for the development of new generations of designers, creating opportunities for those who are beginning, supporting good ideas and recovering the knowhow of the master craftsmen which is in imminent danger of extinction.
Photographs: LZF. María Mira.