Material explorations, traditional craft and the hand of the maker place these emerging designers at the forefront of collectable design.
This piece originally appeared in est magazine issue 55: ‘Faces of Design’.
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Andrés Monnier is a Mexican designer and the founder of Monnier Studio, renowned for creating sculptural stone pieces that blend ancient carving techniques with a contemporary aesthetic. His work draws deeply from Mexico’s natural landscapes, often using local volcanic rock. “I like to think that I didn’t choose to work with rocks, but rather rocks chose me,” Monnier reflects, adding, “One of the things I value the most is the relation this material has with the measure of motion and time.”
For Monnier, stone is a vessel of memory, a patient narrator of Earth’s deep time. He approaches each fragment as a philosophical prompt, allowing its unique formation and texture to guide the outcome. There is no fixed blueprint. Rather, his pieces emerge through a dialogue between material and maker, where intuition and improvisation play equal roles. According to Monnier: “Design isn’t about dictating, it’s about listening.”
Inspired by traditional handcrafting traditions, Monnier and his team of nine artisans forge every piece, relying on chisels, mazes and small tooling machines—all done by hand. This commitment honours the material’s history while giving reverence to the stone.
Andrès Monnier founded Monnier Studio only a few short years ago and already has received international acclaim, pictured here reflected in the Fissura mirror.
Ritus, the black marble candelabra nods to the elemental nature that makes Monnier’s work so striking.
The markings of its maker are clearly visible, in the Davido table, appearing almost hammered from the ravages of the environment.
The handcrafted process is central to the identity of Monnier Studio. Located in Ensenada, on the Pacific Coast side of the Baha California peninsula, the workshop is shaped by the team’s collective rhythm. Each artisan in the Monnier Studio brings a range of talents from engineering to sculpture, but all share a deep respect for the slow, deliberate act of making. Innovation, here, means challenging assumptions about what stone can express, not automating the process.
Over time, Monnier has introduced elemental materials into his practice—fire and mirrors among them. Mirrors invite reflection, both literal and metaphorical. “Every time I look into a mirror, I’m reminded that the self we see is only partial,” he says. “There’s always something deeper, something hidden.” Fire, on the other hand, symbolises the force of creation and destruction, echoing the volcanic origins of the stone used in many of the pieces.
For Monnier, “Design is everywhere. Not only in materials and objects but also in ideas.” This expansive view of design shapes everything he does. The objects, whether a bench, a vessel, or a sculpture, are never just functional. They carry a question, a tension, a point of view. “So much of what we call reality is just an agreement. A shared imagination,” he explains, adding, “Through design, we can challenge that. We can reimagine what it means to live, to see, to feel.”
By chiselling stone, Monnier and his team aren’t just shaping an object, they’re engaging in a quiet act of resistance. Against speed and mass production. Each piece to come out of Monnier Studio is an invitation to slow down, to touch, and to see with more intent.
The Hand cabinet (left) and the Tower of Venus lamp (right) which gives a diffused, soft light through the layers of hand-folded fabric. Shapes and forms come up again and again.
While no two pieces are the same, there is a consistent design language that carries through the collections.
Organic and gothic, the raw volcanic rock is given a reverence at the hands of Monnier Studio.