An Argentine Designer Rocks the Boulders

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Loro Piana Interiors introduces furniture by Cristián Mohaded that is inspired by his country's landscape.

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By Ray Mark Rinaldi

This article is part of our Design special report previewing 2023 Milan Design Week.

It might seem an improbable proposition, turning cold, hard rocks into comfortable and inviting furniture, translating rough stone into cushiony sofas and stools, rethinking rubble as accent tables with enough polish to occupy living rooms.

But Cristián Mohaded, a Buenos Aires designer, could see it all in his head. Those inspirational rocks are already a source of comfort for him as part of the landscape where he grew up in the remote Catamarca Province in northwest Argentina, along with the wood of the olive trees that are cultivated there, the buildings constructed of neutral clays, and the brilliant red lakes whose water is colored by the area's abundant minerals.

He tried to translate it all into the new designs he created under the name Apacheta for Loro Piana Interiors. The furniture debuts during Milan Design Week in a showcase inside the company's headquarters in the Cortile della Seta.

Apachetas, which translates roughly as "cairns" in English, are small rock piles, built over time by travelers in remote regions of the Andes Mountains. They are part trail marker and part ritualistic offering of gratitude to the pachamama — or Mother Earth — spirit that is said to watch over the range.

"They create these apachetas from the stones they find on the way," Mr. Mohaded said. "They stack one stone on the other, and they make this kind of little installation in the natural landscape."

The designer is magnifying the concept in his oversized installation for Loro Piana. He is creating 12 sculptural towers of rock, each 26 feet tall, that will rise from the ground in a circle, outlining a dreamlike environment he describes as a "cinematographic recreation" of Andes topography. The towers, which are purely decorative, will be covered in Loro Piana fabrics recycled from older lines, a nod, he said, to his commitment to using sustainable materials in his work.

Like actual apachetas, the designer hopes they will help people find their way into his reinterpretation of a part of the world few outsiders know or visit, a place "to breathe, to rest, to think" in the action-packed atmosphere that defines Milan Design Week.

The furniture itself, which will be placed inside the circle, leads the sensorial journey from there. Mr. Mohaded's sofas resemble angular boulders, though with softened edges and covered in materials that copy the neutral colors of soil and local wildlife; Catamarca is one of the world's leading suppliers of vicuña, the llama-like mammals whose fibers are used to make luxury fabric.

As for the tabletops, they are ceramic, rendered in high-gloss reds and blues that mirror the surfaces of the region's lakes.

"I didn't want to make a new sofa or table," he said. "I wanted to design a landscape."

On view from Thursday through April 23 at Cortile della Seta, Via della Moscova 33; loropiana.com/interiors.

An earlier version of a capsule summary with this article misspelled the name of the company working with the designer Cristián Mohaded. It is Loro Piana Interiors, not Loro Piano Interiors.

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