MyDecor

LATTOOG is more than just a name, more than an acronym of the owner’s surnames. Behind the brand are the binding forces of architect Leonardo Lattavo and designer Pedro Moog. Both have united two different yet complementary academic backgrounds, two pluralistic experiences and visions of the world, to offer an innovating experience in furniture design and architecture. What was once but a hobby from 1999 until 2003, one of many creative activities among painting, drawing and sculpting, ended up becoming the duo’s main occupation in 2004. One year later, at the launch of their first furniture collection in São Paulo, the name Lattoog surges along with a mark, the company aims to make the best of both worlds, use the newest techniques and technologies available on the market, and combine them with the traditional craftsmanship, artistic and human aspects of Brazilian culture, turning this into its distinguishing characteristic and mark of excellence.

All Lattoog products are conceived, designed and produced to ally the rationalism of high-technology with the intuition, poetry and subjectivity of art objects. The result are functional objects which combine harmonious, sinuous, and organic lines with geometrical, edgy forms, without ever giving up on the very cultural elements so dear to Brazilian culture, such as wooden parquet floors and ceramic tiles, all part of the daily life surroundings of the old historical neighborhood of São Cristovão, from flowery ceramic tiles of walls, tabletops and iron gate forgery which are transformed into furniture to the world famous wave designs on Copacabana and Ipanema sidewalks which together provide an endless source of inspiration for astonishing design creations and furniture. Lattoog is blazing international trails for Brazilian design without losing its local carioca twist, its “ginga”. The Mongrell series provides an example of hybrid furniture, where two pieces unite to make a third, different and unique from the first, reminding of the unique racial mixes which make Brazil and which account for such rich, variegated artistic and cultural output of the tropics. Lattavo and Moog’s creations spin off a similar concept to Brazilian writer Oswald de Andrade’s modernistic “cultural cannibalism”. All influences from the outside, far from being denied, are “devoured and transfigured into revolutionary Brazilian culture.”

The creative approach is carried out by hand-made drawings, pencil on paper sketching is the basis of almost all of the company’s creations, supported and enhanced in turn by ground-floor factory experimentations and of course the contribution of various digital technologies. When it comes to choosing the materials used, there are no limits, as Leonardo puts it: “we are not specialized in wood, metal or upholstery, but we are experts in good design and good ideas.”

The rising concerns and guiding principles of Lattoog in using sustainable materials and production processes were recently recognized as the company was awarded two successive prizes, the Guanabara bed and the Vidigal armchair won the Planeta Casa Sustainability Award in both 2011 and 2012.