Gabriel Ordeig Cole

Born in London to a Catalan father and an English mother, Gabriel Ordeig Cole moved to Barcelona with his family in 1960. He began studying Philosophy at university, but soon changed tack to pursue a BA at East Ham College (1974) and Cardiff Arts School (1975-1978), in the UK.

Having completed his studies, in 1978 he joined friends in Barcelona to found Free Difusion, a music promoter of groups such as Los Peruchos or Los Psicopatas del Norte. He gradually began to design concert sets. Before long, he met the designer Carles Riart with whom he worked as assistant decorator in Bigas Luna's film Caniche: "Carles suggested we work together, and that was when I began to do interior decoration and then design. I picked it up as I went," Ordeig said. He and Riart edited and produced the Colilla lamp while at Comercial Estelar, a company the two managed.

Gabriel Ordeig carried out many interior design projects, including the offices of Group Films (1983), and lighting projects in bars and nightclubs in Barcelona such as Boliche, La Xampanyeria or El Cafe del Sol. He also did the lighting for the restaurants Al Dente (together with Nina Maso, 1982) and Fonda Europa (Granollers) - for which he created the Fonda lamp and the Fonda System, in 1994. And Ordeig designed the Bijou cocktail bar, shortlisted for the FAD awards in 1983, and the Sisisi bar, which gave rise to the Sisisi rosette pendant lamp, edited by Santa & Cole.

In 1985, in an initiative that helped revive and internationalize Barcelona's design scene, Gabriel Ordeig, Nina Maso and Javier Nieto Santa founded Santa & Cole, a company focused on editing design products. He was also co-editor of the first objects in the company's catalogue: the Colilla outdoor lamp based on the original La Colilla design by Carles Riart, El Huevo de Colon and La Bella Durmiente, designed in conjunction with Nina Maso (1975). These last two lamps were innovative and provocative: the first exploring reflected light and the second colouring the fluorescence. Both were unveiled at the 1986 Valencia Furniture Fair, where Santa & Cole made its public debut. As an editor, Ordeig continued to retrieve historic designs and reissue anonymous objects until his premature death in Barcelona in 1994.

A regular writer on design issues, his passion is clearly evidenced by the following quote: "What remains impalpable, mysterious and intangible is not the electricity, but the light."