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here. €10 in Spain will get you an amazing
three course meal in a superb location. It’s
a fantastic quality of life for a very low
price. Spain offers a wonderful lifestyle,
but as business owners, it’s not ideal.
Investments are smaller and there is less
production.”
CP: “Something else we’ve found is that
people in Spain aren’t used to working with
designers. It’s not like in Germany or in the
Netherlands, where people understand the
value of good design, and are willing to pay
for it. To them it’s very normal to hire a
designer, to trust in their expertise, but for
many people here it’s still something new.
This is something a lot of new designers in
Spain struggle with.
“I think that as designers people don’t
always understand the value of your work.
That’s the biggest challenge, and has been
since the beginning for us. As a designer you
need to believe in what you are doing and
be willing to fight for it. We’ve been doing
this since the start. Things are much easierfor us now, but in the beginning we really
had to work hard to convince our clients of
what we were trying to achieve.
“A project that could really change things
for us is Land, which we recently presented
for Poggi Ugo at Salone del Mobile in Milan.
People often ask us what project has been
the most important for our career, and this
one could be it. To have a physical presence
in Milan is very important as it offers you a
window to the world.”
AMHP: “We’d like to keep doing more
of what we did in Italy. It’s exactly how
we’d like to be working. We started out
by adapting our style to our clients’, but
now we finally have clients coming to us
for our style. It’s something we’ve wanted
for years. I really think this could be our
moment.”
masquespacio.comOpening spread Design duo Christophe Penasse and
Ana Milena Hernández Palacios of Valencia-based
practice Masquespacio
Previous page The collaboration between
Masquespacio and Houtique resulted in the Wink
lamp collection along with numerous furniture items.
Wink is composed of different elements that remind
us of the past and to the future, winking to the use
of fringing and gold. Pictured here is the latest floor
version of Wink.
This page After the strategic rebrand of decorative
lighting company RACO, Masquespacio designed
Shade, a new lamp that formed part of the new
collection. The design from Masquespacio seeks
its inspiration through the shadows of our lives
projected by the Mediterranean light. Shade creates
a strong contrast between materials that are not
usual in the lighting sector, combining raffia, leather,
marble and brass, while it shows characteristics from
postmodernism.DESIGNER PROFILE