Andorinhas
swallows
There is in Portugal a tradition of mounting a group o swallows in the exterior walls of a house, sometimes of diferent sizes and poses other times of equal sizes and poses. The objective of their instalation is to not only decorate the plain walls but also to convey some of the depest rooted values of the portuguese society. Being the swallow a migratory bird wich allways comes back year after year to the same place to make their nest, and the fact that they only take one partner throughout their life, makes the swallow a symbol of loyalty and a reassurance in the idea that no matter what happens there will always be a place to come back to.
The use of this type of decorative element began with the now famous ceramic swallow from Bordallo Pinheiro's factory. He molded a few of them to decorate the Tabacaria Mónaco, situated in Rossio-Lisboa, and later began to use them in his own products as a decoration motif wich led to making them a solo object destined to the decoration of houses and facades. It wasn't long before they became a sort of national symbol, not only for the meaning wich is atributed to them in the Portuguese folklore but also because of the beauty they give to an empty wall.
This project began a few years back but only as an idea. The idea was to make a swallow out of wood, easy to produce, with simple lines and that at the same time didn't lose it's identity. Throughout this period I would be constantly drawing and rethinking it's form, reaching a definitive shape more or less a year ago. This final design was then stored in the drawer waiting to be turned into a fisical object.
After it's final form was decided I went into the next fase, constructing a 3d model of the object so that I could make out the necessery angles needed to trasnform the 2d drawing into a 3d shape.
When the digital prototyping was done I then went into building the final object.
A special thanks to Nélia Alves
for the awesome photos
