Contemporary designer Gabriel Charbit’s creative journey was shaped by his diverse educational background. With roots in science, Charbit studied at the Institut Supérieur d’Electronique de Paris, obtaining an engineering degree and a master’s in computer science.
Reflecting on the path of his artistic journey, Charbit recalls designing his first furniture piece during an exchange program in Buenos Aires in his final year of engineering school. The sculptural chair evoked great amusement, prompting him to explore variations inspired by architectural styles from diverse cultures. In 2017, he enrolled at the Ecole Boulle, with a focus on cabinet making. After years of development, Charbit created the first physical prototype of his original chair design while at Ecole Boulle.
An apprenticeship with French artist Jacques Jarriges in 2018 significantly challenged Charbit’s artistic trajectory. Through Jarriges, he began to develop a signature vocabulary rooted in the investigation of negative space. Looking at form, Charbit began to inquire: what is not there? What remains to be created? It is within these voids that a solid artistic concept began to fully manifest.
In 2018 Charbit pursued courses at ENSCI- Les Ateliers, earning a master’s degree in design specialized in contemporary technology. He gained experience in various fields by working for an architecture firm, a molding workshop, and finally a furniture edition company. It was during this period that his aspiration to become a full-time furniture designer began to crystallize.
Today, Charbit uses his keen observation skills to draw inspiration from his surroundings, nurturing abstract forms into physical realization. Driven by a passion for decontextualization, he finds fascination in landscapes, cultures, social norms, human characters, and behaviors, allowing each of these disparate qualities to coalesce into a singular abstract articulation. In 2022, he debuted his collection, “Metropolis,” in Paris. The works were inspired by New York City’s iconic skyscrapers. Through Charbit’s lens the skyline of NYC is a magnificent product of the sum of its parts, with each building’s unique function becoming obsolete when viewed as the greater whole. Similarly Charbit’s aim for his designs is to transcend their traditional roles, inspiring a play between material textures and outside parameters such as light, space, and distance, ultimately leaving room for personal interpretation. Each piece in the collection, which includes desks, chairs, consoles, lighting, and room dividers, becomes an architectural marvel in itself.
