Campana Brothers

Brazilian designers

Campana Brothers (Humberto Campana, born in 1953, in Rio Claro, Brazil; and Fernando Campana, born in 1961, in Brotas, Brazil) are Brazilian contemporary designers. The brothers grew up in Brotas, a small rural town 160 miles northwest of São Paulo. Although both brothers had early aesthetic inclinations, mainly inspired by their exposure to magazine photographs of Oscar Niemeyer’s buildings in Brasilia, they ended up pursuing safer college degrees (Fernando graduated in Architecture, and Humberto in Law).

Soon after graduation, Humberto started some design projects, mainly for his friends, and established his own studio in São Paulo. Not long after this, Fernando joined him and enrolled in an internship at the 1983 Bienal de São Paulo. From this time onward, Fernando and Humberto began their creative design and manufacturing partnership and started to make furniture, objects, and installations out of ordinary materials, including scrap and waste products, such as cardboard, rope, cloth, wood, plastic tubes, and aluminum wire. Their first project to get noticed was the 1989 collection Desconfortáveis (Uncomfortables), in which each of the chairs they designed and produced was a seating piece with its own distinct and surprising personality. read more

In 1993, the Campana brothers designed the Vermelha armchair, a metal frame chair with more than 500 meters of rope intertwined. This chair gained them important international recognition for its innovative design and because it was also the first time that they collaborated with an international firm, Italian furniture maker Edra, for its manufacturing.

Although their furniture, objects, and installations have identifiable Latin American roots, their work has wide international acceptance beyond Latin America, and it is represented in major international design collections, such as those of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, and the Design Museum in London.

Although many of their designs are manufactured in limited editions by small shops or their company, Estudio Campana, the Campana brothers have also collaborated with furniture and product manufacturers such as Alessi, Capellini, Edra, and Fontana Arte.

Last updated: September 12, 2019

For more information on Campana Brothers, please visit: Campana Brothers Site