Poetic Sensibilities Define Claste’s New Range of Artisan-Inspired Furnishings

Two architects and a sales exec walk into a studio… and the result is Claste, introduced at ICFF 2017. Aiming to combine traditional artisanship with boundary-pushing invention, Montreal-based partners Philip Hazan and Quinlan Osborne (the design guys) and Martin Poitras (the businessman) huddle with craftspeople to ensure each piece of furniture is visually intriguing yet highly functional. Creative director Osborne conceived the inaugural collection, Tension, as a give-and-take between fragility and stability. Constructed from a deliberately narrow range of materials, the line is dubbed with decidedly poetic monikers: And Here I Sit, a hall chair, finds a mate in Two Sides of Solitude, a coffee table, both in bianco quartzite; How Fragile This Love, a lounge chair with sharp glass profile, sports a pink onyx seat, the same mix of materials that distinguishes Where We First Met, a seemingly weightless bench.