Martin Eisler was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1913 and graduated in 1936 with an architecture degree. However, World War II consequences prompted him to relocate to Czechoslovakia shortly after completing his studies. and later, in 1938, to Argentina. Here Eisler began to practice his profession as an architect and interior designer and opened his interior design firm, later named Forma. In the early 1950s he decided to go to Brazil.
Born in Brescia, Italy in 1927, Carlo Hauner studied technical drawing and drafting at the Brera Academy in Milan. After his successful participation in the Venice Biennale in 1948, he moved to Brazil, where he devoted himself to the design and architecture. In a short time he founded a furniture company and bought a factory previously owned by Lina Ba Bardi and her husband Pietro Bardi, which he renamed Móveis Artesanal.
Hauner and Eisler met in 1953, Eisler approached Hauner for a personal relative Ernesto Wolf design project, and the rest is history. The two men teamed up and, with Wolf's financial support, opened Galeria Artesanal on a busy São Paulo street. Móvies Artesanal was later renamed Forma. Together with Oca, Forma became one of the biggest names in Brazilian furniture production in Brazil. It even managed to obtain an exclusive license to sell Knoll furniture, which brought big names in international design such as Charles and Ray Eames, Mies Van Der Rohe, and Harry Bertoia to the Brazilian furniture market.
Hauner and Eisler's designs are characterized by the use of Brazilian woods and thin cane frames, and range from furniture to ceramics and textiles. Some of their most famous designs include the Concha/Haia chair (often referred to as the 'Shell Chair' in English) and the 'Costella' armchair. in 1958, probably at the instigation of his Italian wife, Hauner decided to return to Italy and open the company Forma di Brescia, which supplied the Brazilian Embassy in Rome and the Vatican City, among others. Hauner eventually sold his part of the business to Eisler, to devote himself to painting and on a small island off Sicily. After a full life, the artist, designer and serial entrepreneur died in 1997. Forma flourished in the 1960s and 70s until Martin Eisler died in 1977. His original company in Argentina, later renamed Interior Forma, still exists. Although Hauner and Eisler designed and manufactured many pieces, the scale and quality of their work reaching the shore is still just the tip of the iceberg. We are sure that many more interesting pieces will come into the spotlight in the years to come.
