FACTORY IN SEGOVIA, SPAIN
Moll started with Joaquín as the source of the production process. With intensive and passionate training in design and 3D modelling, Joaquín imagined simple and light lines and shapes. As early as 1987, he turned stone into a lightweight material, creating furniture like no one else had ever done before. His structures stood out and made a difference in style. From the very beginning of his career as a professional designer, he established himself as a benchmark in the sector.
Quality and an excellent result have always been part of the process, which undoubtedly result in furniture of the highest standard. Everything involved is a reason for the excellence and high level of demand that a certain taste makes him sustain.
The attention to detail ranges from the selection of certain materials for their tonality, for their finishes, for their possible combinations. It goes through processes of artisan creation, investment, research and innovation in industrial processes and machinery, as well as absolute control of the steps to be followed in the workshop.
GENERATIONAL CHANGE AND LEGACY
In 2020 Nuria Lázaro, second generation of the family business creates and registers the Meddel trademark. Meddel was born with the mission to give a new and fresh start to the company and to bring Moll's design sample to the international market.
Nuria grew up among marble, the beginnings of the company are also her own. The business and Nuria are contemporaries, their paths are born and communicate, from the very beginning.
Meddel's mission is to turn Joaquín Moll's pieces into icons of marble design, as well as to incorporate a quarry of new furniture creators who dare to get to know and challenge natural stone. Giving the material of marble a life of luxury and design is the style proposal for Meddel.
Meddel has already participated in Paris and Milan, two meeting points for the best furniture in the world. It has also launched two collections and has other projects in the pipeline.
Innovation and the vision of the material remain inert and inherent as the basic requirements of its creations and those of all its collaborators.
ORIGIN
A context of close and personal business, postal correspondence and analogue formats. An attitude of success and entrepreneurship, of business and society. Without email, without internet, corporate paper management was carried out in the offices of Creaciones Moll in Colombia Street in Madrid.
The way to show the products was with Polaroid and Kodak photographs, as well as attending the most prestigious furniture fairs in Spain, such as Valencia and Madrid. Nowadays not so much in disuse, the old techniques, uses, customs and forms of that time are back to stay.
A table in place meant photography in a home environment. Hence the Polaroid photographs are mixed in an archive with photographs of several shots in a private living room. Thus mixing the Kilim of a carefully improvised setting with eighties sofas and ornately styled living rooms.
JOAQUÍN MOLL'S INFLUENCES
Joaquín is a connoisseur of stone. From his youth he was already helping his father in stonemasonry work, separating blocks of granite with hammer and chisel. From a large family, his family had its own granite quarries in the Sierra de Guadarrama. He began his passion and knowledge of working with natural stone.
On an artistic level, one of Joaquín's strongest influences was the Bauhaus School. The cultural movement and the rupture that Bauhaus created has been a fundamental basis for his understanding of design. Joaquín's contemporary furniture is a reflection of practicality and functionality in complete harmony with contemporary and modern style.
The Basque constructivist school is also a major influence. The passion for noble materials, raw stone and iron undoubtedly unite Joaquín's styles with the sculptural works of Jorge de Oteiza or Eduardo Chillida, undoubtedly referents of Spanish sculptural art.
Artists such as Pablo Picasso and Antoni Tapies can also be found in Joaquín Moll's library. The most outstanding international artists include Mark Rotkho, Isamu Noguchi and Matt Lamb.
CREATIVE DIRECTION OF MEDDEL
The different collaborations and collections that are currently being developed at Meddel are the beginning of a trajectory that points to infinite possibilities and proposals.
Nuria Lázaro has the firm intention of giving value to marble and giving it life beyond the surface. For this reason, she challenges creators to visualise this hard and unusual material in furniture and to break away from the established, she vindicates contemporary and limit-breaking design.
This rupture is nothing more than the dignification of marble and above all of design, somewhat lost due to economic crises and at other times crises of the imagination.
The creative capacity of product designers must be based on technique and material, on workshop work and on the knowledge of the trade rather than of the office.
The return to the most natural and organic of what in its essence is the creative capacity, which appears as much from the effort and the hands, as from the reference, restlessness and taste for knowledge
FURNITURE AND GRUPO 13
Moll was part of the Grupo 13 furniture consortium. Spanish furniture was then synonymous with quality and good workmanship, its fame and prestigious brand presided over the ambiences of the best decoration shops.
Príncipe de Vergara on the corner of López de Hoyos was the location of Vivencia, a prestigious shop in the heart of the capital's golden mile. From here, unique tables were produced in travertine, and many others in national and international marble. For several years, Vivencia was Moll's point of sale base, which also had high-level clients who were also part of the company's professional family
José Luis, co-founding partner, a great representative and a good expert in fabrics and textiles, used to represent first class firms both in Spain and Portugal. His criteria was listened to and taken into good consideration by a large group of many representatives who at that time ran the same bars in Madrid.
Joaquín Moll, designer and expert of the material, his creations were different from the established and today he is still an exponent of the creation of novelty.