Manuela Pinto and Nelson Silva Sousa – CódigoDesign

Promotion of Portuguese design is what we can find in CódigoDesign, an interior architecture office, an art gallery, and a commercial space for design. Manuela Pinto, Director of Interior Design and founder of CódigoDesign, and Nelson Silva Sousa, photographer and Artistic Director of the Gallery, tell us more about this space of representation of Portuguese creation.

What is in the genesis of your creation?

The need for a space for the design office, the appetite for the inclusion of art in the projects carried out, and the desire to disseminate the idea of enriching the experience of everyday spaces through the presence of art.

Also the desire to constitute a space of promotion for Portuguese design – not necessarily of Portuguese, but thought, and usually done, in Portugal; because the design of other origins isalready well represented, to the contrary of our creators.

In this sense, it was also because we think it is essential to create synergies, and the development of all processes that can leverage much-needed economic growth, with the strengthening of the various aspects of our production system.

What can we find in this space?

Since a novelty, the showroom of two companies that we distribute to the North of the country – MOKKI, a young brand that stands out for the exception of lighting design; and ADICO, a centenary company of metallic furniture that does not need presentations, author of the famous ‘Portuguese chair’ that we find on terraces throughout the country. In addition, we are currently inaugurating this space, where we show the various models that constitute the rich catalog of the company, both for outdoor and indoor uses, and with models that resist the passage of deeds with the same joyfulness of the moment they were created, living with the design of the current team, and that we believe to be able to conquer time with the same agility as their predecessors.

We also have some examples of the design of our own team; and other authors such as Paulo Ramunni, ALIGA and APartirDoNada. Ferreira de Sá Rugs, Beiriz carpets – traditional carpeting, and Lusotufo are also an important presence.

And, of course, in the art gallery, we periodically have temporary exhibitions, often by young artists, still little known to the public, but whose work we fully believe. In addition to the most consecrated painting and sculpture, we propose a lot of drawing, engraving and photography of the author, disciplines sometimes less considered, but with extraordinary expressive possibilities. We also sought to have a good representation of author wax, which, curiously, included many pieces of foreign authors residing in Portugal.

They are assumed as a space of representation of Portuguese creation. How are partnerships created and the representation of artists and their projects?

The foundation of our partnerships is trust between the parties. Sometimes we are looking for companies or artists, other times it is the opposite; but the attitude is always the same.

We are explicit. We seek possibilities, and development; and, therefore, we also naturally expose the limitations, ours, of others, of the conjunctures; we speak in the same way of the possible and the improbable; and we work with the same commitment to our benefit as our partners; we give and request with the same will. Our partners know this, and it is therefore easy to reconcile efforts to achieve more. Collaboration, bidirectional, assumed and uncomplexed, is essential for individual and collective growth. Usually, and here the spirit of art should have a great influence, there is a common fascination for ideas, for beautiful, material or conceptual things, for overcoming, technical, aesthetic, for materialization, and for sharing.