LOOK BOOK - VOLUME 4
93Pages

Focusing on the key pieces of furniture for the home: a place to eat, rest, sleep and work.

Residence Lisboa Porto Residency A Conversation with Margarida Adónis of Fabricaal Papi: Global Neighbourhood Restaurant Manuel Aires Mateus Furniture Products at Home in Our Factory Product Index

ART MEETS CRAFT De La Espada furniture expresses artistry, exacting engineering, and devotion to function. Created through collaboration between designers, engineers, carpenters, tailors and artisans, each product combines the highest level of skill from the fields of art and craft.

ENGINEERED TO LAST A LIFETIME Our dedicated solar-powered factory in Portugal is at the heart of our business. Specialising in solid wood and upholstery, our expert craftspeople combine advanced technology with handcraft to create truly unique, meaningful objects that appeal to the senses. Each product is meticulously detailed and engineered to last a lifetime.

ADAPTABILITY AND INNOVATION With a culture of constant improvement, De La Espada is continually evolving to ensure every aspect of our work is the best it can be, with consideration for performance, aesthetics, and the environment. We believe in flexibility and adaptability, introspection and collaboration, to innovate and push ever forward.

RESIDENCE LISBOA Open over six days in 2019, De La Espada Residence Lisboa provided a platform for connection through design and the arts, celebrating the home and the meaningful objects that are physical manifestations of the owners’ experiences. De La Espada and Studio Astolfi transformed a Lisbon apartment designed by rar.studio into a stage for activities designed to bring furniture to life: a dramatic performance designed by Studio Astolfi entitled Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, a recital by the Fournier Cello Group led by Annette Costanzi and accompanied by Andrew Macmillan on the...

764T SHAKER DINING TABLE 780 CAPO DINING CHAIR 14

122 BELLE REEVE SOFA 053 CLASSON TALL CHEST 18

THE SETTING Our residency took place at Apartment NANA designed by rar.studio, an architectural practice founded by Rita Aguiar Rodrigues. Located on the first floor of a 19th century building in Lisbon, the apartment features expansive rooms with high ceilings and large windows, offering a feeling of great spaciousness and an abundance of natural light and fresh air. The design preserves select historic finishings and decorative features, including the original 19th century tiles in the kitchen, and honours and interprets the Lisbon architecture of the time while modernising sensitively to...

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RESPONSE “The presentation of the furniture and the product design was the most interesting I have ever seen - and I have seen many of them! In the end, when talking to Luis de Oliveira whom I already admired a lot, I noted what he said: ‘De La Espada focuses on the quality of its production, all made in Portugal, but also on the people and on the fundamental idea of sustainability. We want to do it well so it lasts a long time and is part of the circular economy.’ It is not, therefore, only in the way they communicate that they set themselves apart, it is also in the way they understand...

PORTO RESIDENCY Since 2014, De La Espada Residencies have provided an opportunity for visitors to experience the De La Espada lifestyle first hand, not only with design, but with art, music, theatre, and discussion. For 2021, in response to pandemic-related travel restrictions, we hosted a quieter residency designed for virtual exploration, this time in Porto, Portugal. Porto is a city close to our hearts; it is the hometown of De La Espada co-founder Luis De Oliveira and, less than an hour’s drive from the De La Espada factory, is a familiar stomping ground for our team. We chose a very...

THE SETTING The 5th floor apartment home to our residency is located in the Palácio do Comércio, designed in the mid-twentieth century by Maria José Marques da Silva and David Moreira da Silva and renovated in 2016 by Atelier in.vitro led by Joana Leandro Vasconcelos. The apartment showcases the legacy of architectural excellence in Portugal, reflecting rigorous engineering and a careful attention to every element from subtle interior details to how the building fits into the context of the city street. With noble materials, expert design and craft, respect for history and modernity, and...

785L SOLO WIDE 4-DOOR CABINET 101 ELYSIA LOUNGE CHAIR 456GM SIDEKICKS COFFEE TABLE WITH TERRAZZO

781SZ CAPO LOUNGE ARMCHAIR WITH MANTA ESPINHADA

061 CARLTON BED 063 CLASSON BEDSIDE CHEST

THE DISCUSSIONS On IGTV, De La Espada Instagram, listen to De La Espada co-founder Luis De Oliveira in conversation with two creatives who played significant roles in our Porto Residency. Joana Leandro Vasconcelos, principal of Atelier in.vitro, the architecture firm that refurbished the 1940s apartment home to the residency, discussed the design of the building, its significance in Portuguese architecture, and her approach to sensitively modernising the apartments. Luis, in turn, shared the location’s significance to him, and why it was chosen for the residency. Sara Nunes, director of...

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PALÁCIO DO COMÉRCIO “I think it’s the characteristics of the building itself, the way it was designed and built — very good design, very good materials... we were working with a very good basis” For our 2021 residency, we chose a very special apartment in the Palácio do Comércio, a historic building that gives the feeling of time travel with its layers of history, creativity and life. Built in the mid-twentieth century for Delfim Ferreira, a prominent Portuguese entrepreneur, it features spacious luxury apartments originally designed to accommodate both the inhabitants and their...

Maria José Marques da Silva and David Moreira da Silva are architects who, from the 1940s onwards, primarily worked in urban planning, and it is the diversity and depth of their expertise that makes their work so exceptional. This is reflected in Palácio do Comércio, where every scale was considered from subtle interior details, such as curved door and window frames, to the intricacies of the building’s construction and how it would sit on the street, in the neighbourhood and community. The couple, known for their attention to detail and quality of materials and construction, created a...