Michael Fortune, the teacher of the Canadian wood

At the beginning of December, for two days Toronto will be the capital of architecture and design of Canadian taste, thanks to the new edition of IIDEX Canada, the conference and exhibition that shows the protagonists of these sectors.

Ontario Wood, the association that coordinates the local wood producers, the City of Toronto and IIDEX Canada, has united the strengths to give life to IIDEX Woodshop, this year at its third edition. The contest has rewarded 15 prototypes innovative with the wood of unused ash of the area of Toronto: a project with a strong sustainable attitude, considering that it aims to reduce the number of direct ashes toward the dump, giving voice to the creativeness of designer and architects.

Among the 70 projects arrived, one of the choices of the jury have been turned to Michael Fortune, Canadian designer considered by most of the people, one of the more creative contemporary teachers. With a decennial career, Fortunes is famous for his innovative job, extremely technical but to the appearance simple.

“I mainly project and realize furniture on commission for private residences in the whole Canada and the United States. I use the techniques of workmanship of the wood and workmanship of the traditional metals, but I combine them with innovative trials coming directly from aerospace and nautical inspiration” So Mr. Fortunes describes his job and it is for this that the jury has recognized the value of it, its objective in fact it is to create useful objects to all the levels and that they satisfy his personal aesthetics.

The inspiration can also arrive from a vase of Mesopotamia, or from a texture of a piece of fireplace wood: the lines remain always natural and harmonic in pieces that oscillate between the contemporary and the without time.