Casa Pampa, the natural meeting of Japanese washi paper and plants
The Casa Pampa collection, an artisanal jewel like a beautiful summer promise
Let’s get to know Casa Pampa
I met Marie and Joffrey by chance during a walk in Barcelona. Happy coincidence of life, two French people who run a small plant and terrarium shop called Casa Pampa located in the heart of the Raval district (today in the Poblenou district), we were made to get along :)
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Joffrey creates terrariums, real mini-forests that I can spend hours observing. He also organizes workshops, so you can leave with your little personalized jungle under your arm.
Marie is a textile designer, illustrator and creator of the marry.me-design brand. I'll let you admire his creations... personally I love them!
His world is very plant-based, very colorful. Her creations are very flowery, with tones that are always fresh and inspiring.
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The inspirations for the new collection
A month ago, I received a new washi paper pattern: a mixture of water green and emerald green, fuchsia, royal blue, gold curves, it's sure, it's THE pattern of the summer! Plus, he immediately makes me think of Mary and Joffrey. I get on my bike, heading to Casa Pampa! It's also a favorite for them, we decide to create together a collection that will reflect us: freshness, cheerfulness and good humor!
In addition to its sumptuous colors, this pattern is also a tribute to the city in which we live, Barcelona. Plants, arabesques: no doubt, we are in the presence of an Art Nouveau motif, an artistic movement of which Barcelona is one of the flagship cities in Europe with Paris, Brussels, Nancy.
The new art is a movement from the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century which is based on the aesthetics of curved lines, the plant and animal world, a highly developed imaginary world, representations of women. It comes as a reaction to the society of the time which was very corseted and codified and where artists were content to reproduce classic works.
"In Art Nouveau, there is freedom to play, to have fun, to be unconventional: it is a sonorous, joyful, musical art, it is not an art of silence, of austere " (Jean-Michel Othoniel)
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Below I put some masterpieces from this period, notably by Alfonz Mucha, one of the major representatives of Art Nouveau in Europe.
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Art Nouveau will break the codes: from symmetry, the rectilinear, the rigid, we move to the curve, to arabesques, to nature and the dreamlike. It is a creative whirlwind that will blow through cities and will have very rapid (and also very ephemeral) international development. There is a break, certainly, but the influences are numerous. And Japan is no stranger to this...
A little flashback: in 1854, after centuries of almost closed borders, Japan's ports and lands opened. We see, little by little, art objects and Japanese prints arriving on European soil through collectors and major exhibitions of the time. Japanese aesthetics fascinate with their exoticism: the line, the curve, the irregularity, the pastel colors, the omnipresence of nature... a lot of points in common with Art Nouveau, don't you think?
Japanese art, mythology, and certain characteristics of the Renaissance were also influences that allowed Art Nouveau to become a lasting part of European architecture.
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Some links to explore the subject in more depth:
Podcast France Culture, art nouveau or the aesthetics of curves
The most beautiful modernist examples (another name for Art Nouveau) in Barcelona: Casa Batlló, Casa Vicens, Casa Mila, Hospital Sant Pau
And of course, immerse yourself in the worlds of Casa Pampa and marry.me.design !