Creativity could also be instinctive, however it will also be handed down by means of the best way mother and father assume, create and train. That is the story of Manuel Bano, the Mexico-based designer who runs his personal observe and can be a part of the collectible design studio EWE Studio. ‘My love for design comes from my mother and father,’ shares Bano. ‘My father, a designer, and my mom, an artist, shared a studio in our residence in Valencia, Spain. Later, they each taught on the college the place I studied: my mom taught artwork and my father product design.’
Manuel Bano’s Mexico Metropolis studio
(Picture credit score: Alejandro Ramirez Orozco)
Early in his profession, Bano interned with London-based designer Magnus Lengthy studying the workings of business design and the nuances of manufacturing business furnishings for manufacturers. However a 12 months later, he was prepared for an journey of his personal and set his sights on Mexico. He started talking with Héctor Esrawe, a designer and architect who invited him to affix his studio in Mexico Metropolis in 2013. Bano spent a number of years there in numerous roles, and their collaboration finally grew right into a partnership, and in 2017 they, together with Age Salajõe, based EWE Studio, a collective devoted to exploring Mexico’s wealthy pure supplies, methods and craftsmanship (beforehand spotlighted by Wallpaper* once they confirmed at Dubai’s Gallery Collectional in 2024).
(Picture credit score: Alejandro Ramirez Orozco)
So, what’s it in regards to the nation that stored Bano hooked? ‘Mexico evokes me in each area, from structure and cinema to music and, after all, meals. Craftsmanship is alive in all places, from small carpentry outlets to stone workshops, and folks proceed to make issues utilizing methods handed down by means of generations.’
His love of creating deepened in the course of the pandemic, when the ‘OBJ’ assortment started; an evolving physique of labor. Bano discovered himself drawing and exploring new concepts, whilst workshops remained closed. ‘I had a good friend who had a laser-cutting machine. It was basically the one workshop the place I may produce one thing,’ he says. He made that constraint his place to begin, creating the ‘OBJ-01’ desk lamp – the primary piece he produced independently. The collection has since grown to incorporate a ground lamp, chair, bench and stool, whereas his fascination with steel – stainless-steel, brass and oxidised metal – has remained fixed.
‘Mexico evokes me in each area: craftsmanship is alive in all places’
Manuel Bano
‘What I worth about working with steel is the directness of the method. In a lot of my items, I can work with a single materials, and I like figuring out from the start how the completed piece will look. There’s an honesty to steel. That doesn’t all the time occur with stone, glass or different supplies, the place surprises can happen alongside the best way,’ says Bano.
(Picture credit score: Alejandro Ramirez Orozco)
Then got here copper. ‘As I labored extra with metal and brass, I started to come across sure limitations in reaching the types and textures I used to be searching for,’ shares Bano. ‘My good friend, artist and designer Brian Thoreen, launched me to a workshop the place he was producing his items in copper, a cloth I used to be already interested in. I fell in love with it instantly. The probabilities of copper felt countless.’
(Picture credit score: Alejandro Ramirez Orozco)
Thoreen launched Bano to Raúl Rauda, an artisan in Santa Clara del Cobre, a city whose copperworking custom dates again to the pre-Hispanic period and is rooted in Purépecha craftsmanship. In truth hand-hammered copper shapes round 250 native workshops, filling the city with the fixed, rhythmic sound of metalworking. There, Bano realised how this recycled copper might be minimize, bent, stretched and hammered, opening up potentialities that led to items together with the ‘OBJ-12’ eating desk, ‘OBJ-10’ cupboard and extra.
‘OBJ-09’ pendant lamp
(Picture credit score: Alejandro Ramirez Orozco)
Immediately, Bano divides his time equally between his personal observe and EWE Studio. ‘Some designers love to find a bit by means of experimentation,’ avers Bano. ‘My course of is sort of the other: I are likely to know what I’m searching for from the start, and from there the work is about refining and resolving the piece.’
At PAD London 2026, he’s keen to listen to how individuals reply to his work, significantly as he’s primarily based on the opposite facet of the world. He’s happy to have discovered an exhibition companion in Objects with Narratives. As individuals will discover in his work, there’s something very romantic about supplies ageing and altering over time. ‘I believe many designers can relate to that, whatever the supplies they work with.’
Manuel Bano is at Objects with Narrative, Sales space A8, PAD London, 13 to 18 October 2026 at Berkeley Sq..
