Carlo Hauner arrived in Brazil in 1948. He encountered the Brazilian modernist context of the mid-twentieth century, full of optimism due to the economic and social progress linked to the end of the Second World War. Of Italian origin, he settled in the cosmopolitan city of São Paulo and immediately founded the company “Moveis Artesanal” in 1950, in order to produce modern furniture and meet the demand of architects such as Lina Bo Bardi and Gregori Warchavchik. The new techniques and materials brought about by modernization and the new modern architecture created in the spirit of innovation inherent in the modernist ideology prompted the creation of new furniture to integrate this new atmosphere.
Hauner, who had studied technical and artistic design at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan, was the company’s main designer until 1953, when the Austrian-born architect Martins Eisler (1913-1977), who lived in Argentina, arrived in Brazil. The meeting and partnership of Hauner and Eisler began when Eisler, who had come to Brazil to develop an interior design project, placed an order for furniture with Moveis Artesanal. Although it was a success thanks to their great creativity and was a reference for several other Brazilian designers, in 1955 Moveis Artesanal was restructured and changed to Forma and Carlo Hauner dissociated himself from the company.
