Corticeira Amorim presents the METAMORPHOSIS project, an exhibition held at Jerónimos Monastery (Lisbon, Portugal) that shows the result of a research and development process on the potential and limits of cork.
Curated by Experimentadesign, and developed by Corticeira Amorim, an invitation was extended to ten of the most renowned contemporary architects and designers, who devised innovative approaches to the material based on cork's unique properties: Álvaro Siza, Eduardo Souto de Moura and Herzog & de Meuron, Alejandro Aravena, Amanda Levete, João Luís Carrilho da Graça and Manuel Aires Mateus, as well as James Irvine, Jasper Morrison and Naoto Fukasawa.
Based on the reflection and research undertaken by this international group of unique designers and architects, initiated in 2011, METAMORPHOSIS offers new products and uses based on cork's unique properties. It explores new fields and typologies, in symbiosis or metamorphosis with other materials, properties and concepts. This experimental initiative gave its guest contributors creative carte-blanche to devise new terrain, functions and forms while using this material, which constitutes an important resource in material culture and production in the 21st century.
METAMORPHOSIS will stimulate and inspire the creative community to a more extensive exploration of this age-old, environmentally-friendly and entirely sustainable material - cork.
