Manuel Leite Magalhaes

Manuel Leite Magalhaes 1928-2020

After arriving from Portugal in 1946, Manuel Leite Magalhaes settled in Rio de Janeiro, the largest Portuguese community in Brazil. Originally from the same region as Joaquim Tenreiro, and inspired by his work, Magalhães founded his first furniture company, Móveis Flama, in 1948. Between 1948 and 1956, Móveis Flama created luxury furniture for the residences of the Carioca elite, produced in the workshops in Bonsucesso and sold in the Copacabana showrooms. The furniture combines high quality traditional joinery with modern lines, often reminiscent of Tenreiro's work. Their collection is still little known today and is frequently confused with the work of other designers of the period. In 1956, Manoel Leite Magalhaes saw the promise of a new market for office furniture; by closing the doors of Flama and founding ML Magalhães, he made a profound change from luxury manufacturing to industrial methods of mass production. In the 1970s, with the import of revolutionary new machinery, ML Magalhães specialized in the office furniture sector, growing to become a major player until its closure, at the end of the 1980s.

ML MAGALHAES Indústria e Comércio de Móveis