Jordi Vilanova

Spanish · Born 1925

Jordi Vilanova (Rubí, 1925 – Barcelona, 1998) was the cabinetmaker and interior designer who brought pale, natural-wood furniture in the Nordic manner to Spain. The son of a schoolteacher, he trained at Barcelona's Escola Industrial and the Llotja after the Civil War, then in the cabinetmaking workshops of Casa Busquets and Lluís Gili. In 1953 he set up his own interiors firm, and in 1960 opened a showroom in a house on the corner of Freixa and Ganduxer streets, where his furniture was shown alongside ceramics, tapestries, lamps, and paintings by friends.

Those friends became La Cantonada, the collective he formed with the ceramicist Jordi Aguadé, the painter and stained-glass artist Joan Vila Grau, and the jeweller Aureli Bisbe, later joined by the architect Jordi Bonet. Between 1960 and 1975 the group worked on complete projects of civic and sacred art, and in 1967 founded the art magazine Qüestions d'Art.

Vilanova worked mainly in Flanders pine and walnut, and later in beech, oak, and cherry. He paid particular attention to rooms for children and young people, and his Delta stool won a Silver Delta from ADI-FAD in 1964. Other designs include the Tiracord and Billar chairs and the Montseny bunk bed (1961), the Tartera rocking chair (1966), and the Aran modular system (1971). His work is the subject of a 2024 doctoral thesis at the University of Barcelona.

Vilanova took the forms of Catalan rural furniture, from the big farmhouses and small country estates, and pared them into something sober, practical, and new. His clients were Barcelona families tired of heavy, ornate interiors who wanted simpler lines without giving up quality, and every room he furnished started from the needs of the people who would live in it.

He loved wood in all its forms. In 1967 he wrote 'La doble vida dels arbres' for the children's magazine Cavall Fort, about the second life trees have as useful things. Tiracord and Delta carry the same idea: solid timber, simple forms, and pieces made to be used every day rather than admired from a distance.