Top image: Solo Ottoman

Duet Chair

The recent partnership between Neri&Hu and De La Espada has resulted in a sizeable but carefully thought-out collection of furniture pieces that brilliantly display both the Shanghai-based designers’ Eastern roots, and the European brand’s artisanal know-how and technological expertise.

Lattice

Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu describe their collaboration with De La Espada as being “relatively smooth”, thanks to a similar “desire to create good quality products”.

Lianou Stool and Zhuzi Table

Identity and culture are common themes to be found in Neri&Hu’s designs. The same can be said of their collection for De La Espada, which the designers say have an “imprint of heritage, [but with a] modern interpretation”.

Solo Breakfast Bar Stool

Platform Sofa

That said, Western influences do make their way into the collection. The Solo Chair, for example, draws inspiration from the Eames Shell Chair. “It is an updated version that transforms the early industrial look of the iconic Eames Chair into a sophisticated, comfortable chair that is suitable both in domestic and commercial settings,” they explain.

Trio Round Coffee Table

According to the designers, other ideas that run through the collection include the “reinterpretation of beauty in revealing [the] raw material where the cladding is traditional, exposing an object’s frame where it is normally hidden, examining history and its path, and capturing an ordinary scene in a snapshot”.

Trunk Low Cabinet

De La Espada is carried in Singapore at DREAM.