Passion, curiosity, creativity and work, an unbeatable combination that the protagonist of this story knew and knows how to develop his career and expand his horizons. Cristian Mohaded He is a renowned industrial designer that extended from the North Argentina to the unthinkable international stained glass windows. Maybe, not even in his best fantasies he imagined so much. To give an idea, this year he presented a home collection for Louis Vuitton in the Milan Design Week.
Cristian was born and raised in Recreo, Catamarca, and also lived part of his childhood in Frías, Santiago del Estero. “A very quiet and very connected life with the neighbors. My paternal grandmother painted watercolors and my mother wove, in addition to being a teacher. I drew, painted, made crafts, ceramics, the scenographies of school acts, the posters. I was closely linked to the artistic and creative, I was in my DNA,” he says.
However, when the secondary ended, he decided to study chemical engineering at the National University of Córdoba. “I am very applied, I was doing very well in chemistry and in physics, my chemistry teacher told me that it was very good for that I already liked it. Actually, I wanted to be an artist, draw, paint and make sculpture, but I knew that it did not correspond, that I had to do another type of career. That’s why I got into chemistry, but in the first year, despite the fact that I was doing very well, I told me that I was not going to I thought about architecture until I learned through friends that there was an industrial design career and decided to study that. More artistic than the purely industrial and that seduced me more.
In 2008 he opened his study in Buenos Aires and in the last decade he won international awards and recognition, designing, healing and creating projects of various kinds. From small objects to facilities, furniture, sculptures and even drawings.
News: What is Mohaded Studio what is?
Cristian Mohaded: It is a multifaceted study, it has many faces, but at the same time it has one, which is mine. It has many ambitions, a long way traveled. I created a firm, an identity without thinking, everything went so organically, having gone through everything, from putting together a prototype, taking photographs, putting together presentations, putting my website, generating a whole system alone or with the support of my brother or a friend who knew something. Putting a bottom card on the balcony to get the picture to the product or asking someone to put the first bench he had made to be able to take the picture. All these things are of the same cunning or ability to move. I needed to count my job as professional as possible.
News: What lines of work do you have today? How is it diversified?
Mohaded: I set out to sell my services, sell my head as a designer and propose to brands design collections, products, concepts. Thus I started working in collaboration with national and international brands. That is the great engine of the study. Then there is the most personal part, the one that excites me the most, which has to do with the techniques, the matrical resolutions, the research, how to use the resources in different ways, experiment with materials. Examine the Argentine artisanal world, which excites me and passionate, and generate a connection with my creative world and a much richer identity. That is the most artistic pieces, which are linked to the world of crafts at the territorial level, wool fabrics, basketry, silverware work, in stones, in ceramics, in wood. We make collectible design, which are artistic pieces, perhaps we take out one and there is no more, we do not repeat it. That does not happen in the industry, because it is repeated in series. And since last year I am working on interior design projects of very specific clients that interest me, to create a particular story that is the I can tell. I am not interior designer or architect, I come from another place, and I offer a variant of my work put in an interior design project. I call him artistic interior design. Then we also do works and facilities for buildings.
News: The materials you use are multiple
Mohaded: Everything, whatever it occurs. All metals, many woods, ceramics, textiles of Santiago del Estero, La Pampa, Salta, Jujuy, Catamarca, Plastics. I have done everything already.
News: How is the creative process?
Mohaded: There is no formula. Each project is a new story, each project has a different aura because you face a diverse client, a diverse brand. It is not the same to work for Louis Vuitton as for a national brand. I am very accommodating, very understanding the brand, of putting on the shirt. I put myself on the skin because I like to answer who calls me, obviously maintaining my identity, which makes my work recognized.
News: Where is inspiration?
Mohaded: Life, going out, I am very observant, everything that is around me. Where is, in the field, in a five -star hotel or if I am on a ranch. In the middle of the mountain or on the mountain, wherever it is, there is something. I am a kind of permeable sheet, there is one thing that crosses me, and it has to do with observation. We all have that ability to observe, the issue is how big we open our eyes. I think I have more than two eyes. There are people who tell me that I am flying and yes, it can be. I can go through a house in demolition and stay to take pictures because I like his rusticity, the years that passed him. I can go through a building under construction and I like it too. I can be in front of the river seeing the reflexes of the water, how the water hits a stone and there is something that seduces me. It always has to do with this seduction game. Light, shadow, the color of something, texture, things that I like and attract me.
News: Why is your work recognized?
Mohaded: Because I do what I like and that shows. It is not fake, it is super blood, I carry it in my skin, it is an engine for me. I live it like this and I think that makes it genuine, authentic, real and that people see it. I have a lot of honesty in what I say, what I feel and in what I do and in all three moments that can be verified.
News: Why’s The New York Times called “the designer who shakes the rocks”?
Mohaded: It was for a project called “Apacheta”, which was presented in Milan in 2023 for the Loro Piana brand and was inspired by the Andean apachetas. The apachetas are a cluster of stones that are putting one above the other, usually on walking trips for the Andes. It is an offering to the Pachamama and also a permit to be able to travel and take care of you on the road. At the same time, it is a sign that everything is fine for travelers who come later.
News: How did work for Louis Vuitton come about?
Mohaded: Loro Piana belongs to the same LVMH group, and when we present that work in 2023 people Louis Vuitton liked it. A few months later they contacted me because they wanted me to do a collection for them. We were working for almost two years and we presented this year at the Milan Design Week at the Serbelloni Palace. It is a home collection that contains furniture and objects, such as sofa, table, chair, lamp, vases, carpets, glasses. We did a job of own research and with information that the brand sent us to assemble a collection that reflected the two worlds.
News: Is there any phrase or principle that defines it?
Mohaded: There is a phrase that I usually use and that has to do with curiosity and passion. Einstein said it: “I have no special talent, I’m just passionately curious.” For me, passion is a very important engine, it looks like a cliché, but it is what makes you move and cross and continue believing. I have been very highly spent, wanting not to continue working, because I got tired, because it was impossible, because it was one after another, to always look for the place and it seems that you never arrive. The world is full of frustrations, I have many projects that told me no, as for several lives. But that does not stop me, I do notice and analyze, and then I continue. I have the ability to advance and transform that situation into something positive. I am half tireless, hence the passion. And curiosity makes me an observer and looking at things from another place. Smell, feel, vibrate and see life from a much more naive place. I think this combination of passion and curiosity is what defines me.
