Swing Lantern by Designo Patagonia

After graduating from the National University of Córdoba, Argentina, in 1999
Manuel Rapoport founded Designo Patagonia in 2002 as a design and production studio for furniture, decorative accessories, lighting and toys. The small company’s product design focuses primarily on ‘sustainability’, meaning the manufacture of innovative products with a strong local identity, using local natural resources as materials and local handicraft for production.

After an initial design boom in post-crisis Argentina, boosted by exchange rates that made imports expensive, the market scope has now decreased and is assuming its real dimensions. What matters in Argentina now is product quality and good design. Designo Patagonia is trying to achieve this by defining itself in terms of local identity.

‘

Banquito Matero’ is one of Designo Patagonia’s most enigmatic products. It is
a traditional low stool with five legs and a goat skin & wool seat cover. It was made out of the local Lenga beech tree, with goat leather produced by socially and environmentally responsible families in the Patagonian steppe. The ‘Swing Lantern’ is a musical instrument and play object that can be attached to a large lamp post. The musical installation, made of recycled musical instruments and
discarded pots and pans, comes alive when people swing the handle bars attached to the lantern. The faster you swing, the louder it will sing.