Martino Gamper Named 'Best Alchemist'

Wallpaper* magazine awarded the Italian designer

the accolade above for — among other things —

his successful completion last year

of a self-imposed project requiring him to design

100 different chairs in 100 days.

Above and below, some of the 100.

Gamper worked in a studio filled with discards and donated items,

from garden variety plastic to Aalto and Eames.

He told the Financial Times, "The project doesn't make sense in any respect —

financially, creatively or in terms of practicality — but this was what attracted me to the idea....

It was my own response to normal, expected systems of manufacturing that dominate design.

Creating 100 different chairs, one a day, was a process of sorts but each chair has its own character.

It was a form of manufacturing that actively defies the uniformity that people expect from manufactured products."

Have a look.