Thomas Faller grew up in Germany’s Black Forest city of Freiburg im Breisgau. At school, he loved the handicrafts lessons where he made gliders and ships out of wood. During his three-year apprenticeship as a joiner, he worked for various companies in his home town, but he also travelled to the Engadin region of the Swiss Alps. A professional exchange programme allowed Thomas to undertake his master joiner diploma in the alpine region, which resulted in him working in Samedan, Switzerland, for 20 years. In 2014, he and two partners founded a joinery workshop named Schwab & Partner which focuses on furniture, interior fittings, antique wood restorations and window construction.

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In 1995 Eva Mechler was fed up with the grammar school, its system and its approach to learning. So in the 10th grade she decided to leave school and to take up a traditional carpentry apprenticeship instead, “I wanted to create something with my own hands and put my interest in geometry into practice.” Fast forward six years, Eva reached the rank of master carpenter following the footsteps of her grandfather. “At the age of eight, I built my first piece of furniture together with my grandfather. He was a carpenter himself and made furniture and toys for me and my brothers.” Today, she is an award winning designer who established her own company in Switzerland. She collaborates with leading designers in Zurich, Paris, Amsterdam, London and New York, for land, air, and sea projects, and takes part in every step of the making process, from sketch to completion. Having started her practice in the late 1990s, Eva has developed a unique but simple aesthetic that builds on quality with a special focus on contemporary design fit for the future.

Mechler, Eva

The beauty of practicality

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Growing up in a creative family, Jérôme Blanc was introduced to manual labour at an early age by his father, who ran a locksmith's workshop and was passionate about boat restoration. Inspired by these activities, Jérôme knew he would go on to work with wood. After training in cabinetmaking and carpentry at the École des Arts et Métiers in Geneva, he discovered woodturning and sculpture on a trip abroad. He now creates imaginative wooden sculptures that merge traditional woodcarving and woodturning techniques with new technologies, often mixing wood with different materials including bronze, acrylic and glass. His award-winning work has been exhibited around the world.

Blanc, Jérôme

A world of inspiration

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Bastien Chevalier studied cabinetry for four years. Looking for a job, he knocked at the door of a cabinetry workshop in Sainte-Croix, where he found Jérome Boutteçon, Meilleur Ouvrier de France in wood marquetry. Although he had never had an apprentice, Boutteçon took Chevalier under his wing and for five years taught him everything about the fine craft of marquetry. Chevalier was born in the era of graffiti, a world that deeply inspires him. His very contemporary style departs radically from the traditional imagery usually associated with marquetry. The recognition of his work through international awards and exhibitions in salons and art galleries is growing day by day.

Chevalier, Bastien

A true radical in a traditional craft

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An accomplished cabinetmaker and creator, what drives François Staub forward in his craft is the search for new forms and how to innovate in his approach to making. Wanting to always go further in his craft, he masters different digital and innovative techniques, programmes and machines. François combines his cabinetry skills with a singular approach to design and a fascination for innovation, which make for endless possibilities in crafting furniture, woodwork and light. One of his chef d’oeuvres is a very special piece that took over 7,000 hours of work to be completed: a small cabinet full of the secrets of cabinetmaking, with a facade inspired by the Ca’ d’Oro in Venice, and a miniature world like a maze of secrets inside.

Staub, François

Mixing digital tools and traditional craftsmanship

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Developed in partnership with Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d’Arte and made possible by the support of Cartier, Homo Faber in Città gives you a rare chance to visit over 70 artisan workshops. The project is developed in collaboration with Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Confartigianato Imprese Venezia, CNA Venezia, Consorzio Promovetro Murano, The Venice Glass Week and Venezia da Vivere.

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Step inside the workshops and ateliers to learn the secrets of local master artisans and manufacturers

Try your hand at different crafts with an authentic experience

Marvel at examples of fine craftsmanship by doing our itineraries

This september, the second edition of Homo Faber in Città invites visitors to step off the beaten track and discover the artisanal addresses where Venetian craftspeople create objects of exquisite beauty. A rare opportunity to witness Venice’s master artisans and young talents demonstrating their crafts and presenting the tools, materials and skills involved in contemporary Venetian craftsmanship.

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Homo Faber Guide is an online portal dedicated to contemporary craftsmanship, showcasing artisans, ateliers, museums, galleries, shops and experiences. Create your user account for access to exclusive features on Homo Faber Guide: save your preferred pages, hear about hot topics first, leave recommendations for your favourite artisans and much more.

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Although the Michelangelo Foundation researches the talents for its projects autonomously, collaboration with our ambassadors is fundamental. Over 120 associations, schools and institutions allow us to map the continents for craftsmanship and to have partners in each country who share our vision and goals. In addition, we have asked well-known personalities in the craft, design and art world to be our ambassadors in the cities where they live, so that their recommendations can offer a unique insight into craftsmanship in the major cities of Europe and beyond.

Who are our ambassadors?

Download our free Homo Faber Guide app (iOS and Android) to discover artisans, museums, galleries, shops, and experiences by location. Search Homo Faber on the App store on your mobile device.

Find craftsmanship destinations on the go

Discover the addresses of esteemed manufacturers, well known for producing high quality objects across a wide variety of crafts. Read their stories and find out where you can shop their contemporary pieces, see their archive collections and even in some cases visit their workshops. Find exceptional ateliers where artisans collaborate creatively to create fine pieces of craftsmanship. Reach out to them to commission something special.

Ateliers & Manufacturers

All the artisans and small workshops featured in Homo Faber Guide have been carefully researched and selected. They are presented and narrated through a selection of images and an interview, which allows readers to immerse themselves in the universe of these makers who exemplify excellence in their individual fields or are promising talents of the future. Find masters and rising stars who share the same passion and determination, and whose workshops are ready to share their secrets with visitors.

A selection of the best artisans

Are you eager to discover a city through craftsmanship? Do you wish to spend a few hours visiting an applied arts museum or attending a course on a craft with one of the masters featured in Homo Faber Guide? Browse the section dedicated to experiences and find your next adventure.

Experiences

An expert artisan is an accomplished artisan who has been in activity for more than ten years. He or she may also be engaged in passing on their knowledge to the next generations, but they have been doing so for less than seven years. Beyond this, they will become a Master artisan.

Who is an Expert artisan?

Homo Faber Guide provides you with a selection of the best addresses across Europe and further afield, where you will be able to discover and purchase exceptional objects, some of which are created by artisans featured in Homo Faber Guide.

Galleries

Homo Faber Guide is an online platform dedicated to craftsmanship that allows you to discover artisans and their masterpieces; explore museums, visit galleries and shops selling unique objects; enjoy experiences in cities across Europe and beyond.

Homo Faber Guide is a signature project developed by the Michelangelo Foundation for Creativity and Craftsmanship, an international non-profit organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, which was set up in 2016 thanks to the intuition of Franco Cologni and Johann Rupert. The Michelangelo Foundation’s mission is to celebrate and preserve master craftsmanship, and for this reason it has created a map of the most significant representatives in this field, with the aim of connecting all its protagonists: artisans, designers, gallery owners, art curators, collectors and enthusiasts of high-quality handmade pieces.

About the Guide

Are you an artisan, atelier or manufacturer? Would you like to be featured in Homo Faber Guide? The Michelangelo Foundation encourages self-assessment initiatives and is pleased to evaluate new members to appear on the Guide or in other projects. Thanks to the Master’s Touch Evaluation Tool, every artisan can send their application: register and access a questionnaire to see if you fulfill the 11 criteria for excellence that stand behind all the activities of the Michelangelo Foundation. If your answers reach the minimum requirement, your application will be brought to our attention; if, on the contrary, you should score below the minimum requirement, we will give you some points for improvement, in the hope that you may participate in future initiatives of the Michelangelo Foundation.

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Our artisan labels

A master artisan is an accomplished artisan who has been in activity for more than ten years, and who has also been engaged in passing on his or her expertise to the younger generations for more than seven years. This is in keeping with one of the key values of the Michelangelo Foundation: the transmission of knowledge in craftsmanship.

Who is a Master artisan?

Find museums handpicked for their links to contemporary craftsmanship and the exquisite collections they have on display. In each city, discover a museum of interest and organise your visit. From Italian museums displaying coral collections, glass pieces and ceramics to decorative art museums in Russia and Greece, marvel at the variety of museums exhibiting masterpieces, showcasing techniques and recounting histories.

Museums

A rising star is an artisan who has been active for less than ten years, and who is capable of expressing his or her craft with competence, creativity and originality. Whether self-taught or trained, the rising star represents the future of craftsmanship, in creativity, concerns and approaches.

Who is a Rising star?

The artisans featured in Homo Faber Guide have been selected through a meticulous assessment process based on the 11 criteria for excellence, identified by Alberto Cavalli, Executive Director of the Michelangelo Foundation, in the volume The Master’s Touch, written with researchers Giuditta Comerci and Giovanna Marchello. The members of the Michelangelo Foundation’s network who have been invited to participate in sourcing artisans for the Guide use an evaluation tool based on these criteria. In this way, they can identify the most suitable artisans to include in the project.

Simple rules for a transparent selection

In which city does the artisan work?

In which country does the artisan practise?

What craft does the artisan practise?

What is the artisan’s Instagram page?

What is the name of the artisan you are recommending?

Does the artisan have a website?

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