The new, timeless and sculptural collection of Beirut-based designer Richard Yasmine merges soul, emotions and a tribute to a city with functionality. The singular furniture items and objects were launched under the name After Ago.
The works of interior architect and product designer Richard Yasmine are always characterized by a reflection on Middle Eastern culture, and particularly, on Lebanese values. He regularly collaborates with local craftsmen, thus combining traditional techniques with the latest technologies. His concepts are many times inspired by the aspects of the human body and psychology, fused with bold yet simple and minimalistic shapes.
This attitude also dominates his latest collection dubbed After Ago, consisting of chairs, tables, other household objects and vases. When designing the After Ego collection, the designer merged postmodern elements with the delicate and simple lines of Art Deco, but the monolithic modesty of brutalism also manifests on the objects, as one can also observe in Beirut’s architecture. The delicate arches giving the character of the products symbolize a tribute to the city.
The After Ago furniture items and objects are all hand-crafted, by using materials like foam, lightweight concrete plaster, acrylic, stoneware and clay. The surfaces with alternating black and white tones carry a symbolic meaning: black stands for the unknown and sophistication, while white serves as a manifestation of calmness and safety as well as innocence and a new beginning. The alteration between the black and white stripes on each side of the object and the meaning associated to them evoke a sense of emotional duality in the observer, too. They carry the duality of life and death, joy and melancholy, wholeness and brokenness, as well as a sense of anxiety and calmness—“just like the fascinating history of my city Beirut,” as the designer puts it.
Richard Yasmine | Web | Instagram
Source: Yellowtrace
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