CARLOS JUNQUEIRA wants Angelenos to recognize Brazil as home to more than just supermodels. His showroom, Espasso, is dedicated to Brazilian furniture designers, including midcentury master Sergio Rodrigues and contemporary architect Isay Weinfeld, the man behind the acclaimed Fasano Hotel in Sao Paulo. "Brazilian modernism is not as well known as it should be," Junqueira says. "The furniture from that era made from jacaranda and other exotic woods has an organic but very sophisticated and sexy look." Contemporary pieces, such as stainless steel and cowhide benches by L.A.-based Antonio da Motta, also are an integral part of Espasso's rich blend of periods. In the stark white gallery, Ricardo Fasanello's 1970 glass-topped Arcos coffee table ($2,642, center) is a natural companion to Claudia Moreira Salles' new Sao Conrado sofa ($12,337). Pacific Design Center, 8687 Melrose Ave., Suite B433, West Hollywood; (310) 657-0020; www.espasso.com.
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INNOVATIONS
Box seats for the lobby
They may not have been sexy, but the ingenious seats crafted by Cornell University undergraduates won the national Chair Affair competition to build furniture using only corrugated cardboard and glue. The design, shown here, by Nicholette Chan, Andrew Kim and Jean You beat 175 other entries from 56 schools last week in the annual contest run by the American Institute of Architecture Students. Whereas the third-place Spectrum chair by University of Louisiana at Lafayette students mirrored the irreverence of Frank Gehry's Wiggle chair (see Page 1), the Cornell team took a more pragmatic route: By providing space for corporate logos, their public seating (think airports) encourages companies to recycle and becomes "more than just a place to sit," Chan says. www.aias.org/chairaffair.
