Text by Ferran Vizoso for the book “Matter and Light”, the catalogue of the monographic exhibition on the work of Josep Ferrando Architecture at the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

“La Unidad” introduces a series of small-scale projects by J. Ferrando, including furniture and installations, grouped at the end of the publication. Through the description of the hidden geometry embedded in the aggregation of the slats of a small construction, the text reveals some of Josep’s design methodologies:

“But there is more. To the systemic multiscalarity and the radical efficiency of the small slat used in the Buenos Aires structure, a third virtue must be added, a seductive mystery. The small notch at the centre of the piece allows three units to interlock, forming a three-dimensional cross which, when aggregated with others, builds the entire assembly. The key point is that the geometry of the joint hides the interfaces between the three rods, making it impossible to understand how they come together and, by extension, how the entire system is constructed. The discomfort generated by this mystery is highly evocative, because we cannot reveal it either (we would have to dismantle the construction). The sensation it produces resembles that of a child before a world yet to be discovered and opens a pleasant fissure in the high walls of certainty that we all eventually erect around ourselves.”

Ferran Vizoso (2015)