Modern Tones Q&A: Christian Møller Andersen

Q — What inspired your collaboration with L.Ercolani?

CMA — The starting point for the colour palette came from looking at modernist and mid-century designs from the 1950s, and the colours that helped define a lot of the design, architecture and art that emerged during that era. I wanted to form a palette that felt bold, warm and rich, while also complimenting the more understated, tactile simplicity of the wood that is the central material in all of L.Ercolani’s designs. I wanted a sense of harmony and balance between the natural wood and the colour stains, so that they could be combined more seamlessly in an interior environment. In the process of defining and finetuning the stains, it was essential that the stains had the right level of transparency to sustain the texture and tactility of the wood grain.

Q — How did you go about defining a bold, new palette of colour stains for a brand with such a rich heritage?

CMA — Drawing inspiration from the 1950s, I took cues from L.Ercolani’s Originals collection and the designs that Lucian Ercolani did during that period. It was of vital importance to me that the new colour stains had close ties to the history and heritage of the brand, so the addition of the new colours felt holistic. To me, the new tones marry the brand’s historic past with their forward-thinking approach through an intense use of colour. I wanted to use Lucian’s mid-century designs as a foundation and build upon this idea of tactile warmth with richer tones, atypical of the time during which the pieces originated.

One of the stains in the new palette, the Original stain, actually came about from looking at old varieties of the Butterfly Chair and Stacking Chair at the L.Ercolani factory, all of which were produced in the 1950s. They had a warm and golden look to them that you usually only get after decades of use. The Original stain was an attempt to replicate this look, honouring the heritage of the brand in a fairly direct visual manner.

“It was of vital importance to me that the new colour stains had close ties to the history and heritage of the brand, so the addition of the new colours felt holistic.“