ARENA - CATHEDRA - Cathedra 08

Born in Barcelona in 1987, Gabriel Escámez is an AD 100-recognised designer and the director of COBALTO STUDIO, a multidisciplinary Barcelona practice working across art, fashion, interior design, and furniture.

His formation in Fine Arts and Interior Design grounds a practice that refuses narrow categorisation. At COBALTO STUDIO, Escámez develops projects that move between painting, sculpture, craft, and spatial design, each guided by a consistent visual language rooted in Mediterranean sensibility. Rationalism and vernacular simplicity are constants: materials used honestly, forms reduced to their essentials, nothing added without reason.

Alongside the studio, Escámez founded La Cobalta, an editorial centred on objects, lighting, ceramics, and books. The venture reflects the same discipline, selecting and presenting work that carries cultural weight without theatrical staging.

The AD 100 listing placed him among a group of practitioners whose work shapes contemporary interior culture across Spain and beyond. It is the industry's most cited recognition in architecture and design, and for Cobalto Studio it confirms a practice built on craft logic rather than market cycles.

His connection to the Mediterranean runs through the work as a structural attitude rather than surface reference: an attention to craft traditions, popular culture, and a kind of beauty that accumulates through use. That orientation sets Cobalto Studio apart from studios that position themselves through eclecticism or novelty alone.

Works by Gabriel Escámez are available through Monde Singulier.