Roberto Gil

Brooklyn-based architect, designer and a father, Roberto Gil was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He received his Masters in Architecture from Harvard University in 1990, and worked as an architect for Fox & Fowle and Agrest and Gandelsonas Architects in New York before starting his furniture company in 1992. Roberto’s colorful pieces were soon seen in the windows of Barneys New York, FAO Schwarz and in the museum shops of the Whitney Museum, the Guggenheim and the MoMA. Roberto has designed successful furniture collections for Offi, Crate and Barrel and Williams-Sonoma. His influences include Gerit Rietveld, Jean Prouve, Le Corbusier and Donald Judd, as well as a delight in everyday objects and pop culture.

As an architect, Roberto understands the space in which his furniture lives, particularly the small, oddly shaped rooms that often characterize urban dwellings. Roberto finds creative, customized solutions to the challenges these spaces pose through an understanding of circulation, lighting, orientation, airflow, and privacy - and how these elements affect the layout of a room.

Ultimately, Roberto’s pieces are less designed than constructed. They are marked by efficient use of materials and intuitive connection systems, and it is no surprise that he cites sawhorses and scaffolding as inspirations for his own version of practical minimalism.