Monocle Magazine, Profile: Breuer Estudio, Creative Director Joel Escalona

Mexico City furniture company Breuer was founded in 1993 by Arturo Verástegui and has since become one of the country's top manufacturers specialising in carpentry. The brand regularly collaborates with designers and architects on collections presented at the Mexican capital's biannual art fair, Zonamaco, but is only just starting to make a name for itself internationally.

After collaborating on a collection as a guest designer, Joel Escalona joined the company as creative director last year to establish the band's vision.

"In Mexico we have several designers who are setting up their own companies. This is the other way around: it's a business that is interested in becoming a benchmark of Mexican design,"

he says.

Noviembre Collection

His first collection in his new role, Noviembre, is a series of wooden benches, tables and decorative pieces inspired by influential Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi. "It's totally different to what I usually do, which is often straight lines and orthogonal shapes," • says Escalona, who is passionate about sculpture and recently went back to university to study contemporary art.

"This is much slower and heavier: pieces that take their time as though they were moving very slowly."

Breuer exports to the US and is slowly starting to draw attention further afield, with new customers in cities including Hong Kong.

- JWE

Transcript from Original article written in 2021