Every design philosophy worthy of enduring the passage of time is anchored in a lineage of contemplation. With this conviction, we inaugurate The Study Library, a permanent archival corner within JoverValls conceived not as a passive retrospective, but as an active sanctuary of reference. Here, we gather the monographs, catalog raisonnés, and primary testimonies written by those who witnessed the creative spark firsthand inside the atelier. These are the volumes that continue to educate our gaze, reaffirming our commitment to tangible matter, artisanal discipline, and the quiet dignity of functional art.
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We open this library with the study on Diego Giacometti, documented by the art historian and General Curator of Heritage in France, Daniel Marchesseau (b. 1947). For nearly three decades a preeminent curator at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, Marchesseau was not merely an academic observer; he was a daily witness to the tactile labor unfolding in the legendary studio at 46 Rue Hippolyte-Maindron. When Éditions Hermann published his canonical monograph in 1986 under the ISBN 2-7056-6016-X, it was conceived under the humanist direction of publisher Pierre Berès—the very house that had immortalized the seminal treatises of Henri Poincaré, Albert Einstein, and the Bourbaki group. Berès treated Diego’s hand-modeled plasters and patinated bronzes not with the superficiality of a decorative catalog, but with the anatomical exactitude of a scientific treatise. Marchesseau, who had also been the decisive institutional force behind the historic 1985 commission for the Musée Picasso at the Hôtel Salé, delivered in this work the definitive record that consecrated Giacometti’s oeuvre as an inalienable pillar of French state heritage following the sculptor’s death that same year. |
To understand Diego Giacometti is to understand a deliberate resistance against industrial detachment. Jean Leymarie famously celebrated him as an artisan-poète, an artist-craftsman who, with characteristic humility, insisted on defining himself simply as a bricoleur. Yet beneath that modesty lay a sovereign understanding of structural balance that elevated hand-cast bronze to monumental relevance. Where the dominant voices of twentieth-century furniture design—predominantly architects—conceived domestic typologies through mental abstractions, technical drafts, and industrial mediums like tubular steel or molded polyester, Diego worked exclusively through physical touch. His language was born directly from the resistance of raw materials: structural iron armatures bent by hand, damp plaster modeled directly with fingertips and spatulas, and the ancient alchemy of lost-wax bronze casting. As Henri Cartier-Bresson perceptively observed, his creations are imbued with an unmistakable cadence—a timeless rhythm, an austere sobriety, and a subtle humor in which sculpted birds, frogs, mice, and delicate foliage converse naturally with structural geometry.
His artistic journey unfolded in three harmonious movements, as delineated in Berès’s structural analysis. The first was the silent, fraternal dialogue alongside his brother Alberto, where Diego’s technical brilliance formed the indispensable spine of their shared laboratory. The second emerged at the end of the 1920s through his decisive collaboration with interior decorator Jean-Michel Frank, for whom Diego sculpted visionary plaster consoles, sculptural bas-reliefs, and cast-bronze lighting fixtures for the most avant-garde Parisian residences of the era, notably the hôtel particulier of the Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Noailles. The third and ultimate phase began after Alberto’s passing in 1966, when Diego stepped fully into his autonomous maturity. Here, furniture shed any lingering utilitarian banality to inhabit the realm of pure sculpture: tables, gueridons, and low chairs characterized by severe structural clarity, upon which flourished his distinctive Etruscan and Pompeian bestiary—an organic mythology fused into solid bronze.
This trajectory reached its institutional zenith in 1982 when Dominique Bozo, the founding director of the Musée Picasso and later president of the Centre Pompidou, entrusted Diego with the total decorative commission for the newly restored seventeenth-century Hôtel Salé. Assisted throughout his final eighteen months by the sculptor Philippe Anthonioz, Diego conceived an extraordinary ensemble of monumental bronze chandeliers, lanternes, console tables, and seating. It was a project that seamlessly dissolved the boundary between architecture and domestic sculpture, establishing a dialogue of eternal resonance within the classical French interior.
The Thread of Permanence: Diego Giacometti, JoverValls, and the Living Archive
To revisit the pages of Daniel Marchesseau’s monograph is not an exercise in historical nostalgia; it is a deliberate confrontation with our own responsibilities as makers. Diego Giacometti’s refusal to surrender the manual gesture to mechanized convenience—his serene insistence on being an artisan-poet whose hand directly formed the plaster, the bronze, and the patina—remains the clearest antithesis to contemporary industrial obsolescence.
At JoverValls, our philosophy is anchored in that very same triad: the Nobility of Materials, Technical Mastery, and an uncompromising commitment to Timeless Design. We do not design for seasons; we build The Legacy. In an era governed by ephemeral trends and disposable manufacturing, we choose the slow, exacting path of permanence. Each piece of authorship that departs our atelier is conceived not merely as high-end furniture, but as a tangible asset—an antiquity of the future designed to be inherited across generations.
This dialogue between past and future defines the dual nature of our work.
We share Diego's conviction that the integrity of a piece resides in its hidden discipline: the invisible weld, the calibrated tension of the metal, the tactile depth of an honest surface that gains character with time rather than degrading. This is our savoir-faire—Spanish craftsmanship engineered with exacting precision for the world's most discerning architectural envelopes.
For architects, interior designers at boutique studios, and private collectors seeking one-of-a-kind sculptural elements or bespoke, site-specific commissions, we invite you to reach out to our atelier to discuss a private consultation.