Coffee Table in Wood and Marble by Antonio Moragas, Spain, 1970s

Coffee table, wood and marble Designed by Antonio Moragas. Spain 1970’s.
Nephew of the modernist architect Antoni María Gallisá, he graduated as an architect from the Higher Technical School of Architecture of Barcelona in 1941. His training was not only limited to the technical aspects of architecture, but also, at all times, had an important enrichment humanistic and a great cultural concern and as a student he was part of the group calling itself “Brotherhood of Good Men” whose common interest was classical culture. His taste for social gatherings and clubs was a constant throughout his life, earning him a well-deserved fame as an elegant, fair and fighting man.

In 1951, he appeared as the winner of the first prize in the competition for ideas to solve the housing problem in Barcelona, among the members and founders of the so-called Grupo R. From the latter and together with colleagues such as Joaquín Gili, Oriol Bohigas, José Antonio Coderch or José María Sostres, Moragas began the task of reviving a modern language that had been slowed down by the war. From this moment on, he developed an intense activity of cultural promotion and modernization that led him to organize conference cycles, of which Alvar Aalto, Nikolaus Pevsner or Gio Ponti will be invited figures, and to promote, as founding member and first president, the Industrial Design Association, created in 1960 within the Promotion of Decorative Arts (FAD), of which he was president from 1968 until his death.