supernova is when a star explodes and all its debris is
sent out into space, only to fuse again and create new
stars. Here, death is just a transformation.’
The designers see this celestial cycle as a metaphor
for Beirut, where they live and work. According to
legend, the city has been built and destroyed seven
times during its 5,000-year history. ‘We call it the
phoenix city because it always rises from its ashes,’
says Moussallem. In spite of recent troubles, its people
remain hopeful. ‘We imagine the future to be linked to
the past,’ he says. ‘Everything we do is related to time.’
The designs for the new show embody the ‘retro-
futuristic’ concept that the pair have been developing
since the early days of their practice. It is not, they
point out, the same retro-futurism that fascinated
illustrators and filmmakers in the 1950s and 1960s,
but a more personal approach with recurring themes
and tinges of nostalgia. The duo’s industrial design
background is barely evident, but it nevertheless
informs their work: ‘We have this industrial way of
thinking, how to make from one thing a declination
of many things, a system,’ says Moussallem. ‘It’s like
music: you learn the basis and then you compose
your own, which can become anything.’
‘Supernova’ comprises two distinct collections.
The Monocle series of cabinets, a spin-off from a piece
the designers exhibited with Nilufar in 2016, riffs
on the ‘equilibrium of masses’ and features a solid
wooden base with a lighter, glass vitrine on top. The
other series, Constellation, explores how a scientific
phenomenon can be translated into objects. The new
pieces conceptually illustrate the transformation of
the cosmos: an explosion is reproduced as geometric
speckles of metal neatly applied onto a marble surface,
a lunar eclipse mimicked by a table with overlapping
tops in marble and glass. Raffoul and Moussallem’s
work is usually linear and sleek, so working with
volume is new territory. ‘[The pieces] look like »ABOVE, A DETAIL OF THE
MONOCLE SERIES’ ‘M030’
CABINET, CRAFTED IN
ROSEWOOD WITH HINGES
OF SANDBLASTED BRONZEAn explosion is reproduced
as geometric speckles of
metal, a lunar eclipse by a
table with overlapping tops
BELOW, AT ANOTHER LOCAL
WORKSHOP, A BLOCK
OF TRAVERTINO BRONZO,
ABOUT TO BE CUT INTO
A ‘C030’ SIDE TABLEDesign
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