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Rafael Marquina and the setrill
Rafael Marquina explains that, in 1959, the founders of ADI-FAD, the Association of Industrial Designers for the Promotion of Decorative Arts of Barcelona, met to create awards that would give visibility to the then incipient design profession in Spain.
Since they didn't expect much participation in the open call, they decided to design and present their own products. He knew it right away: he remembered the slap his mother used to give him when he was a child when he stained the tablecloth with oil. And that painful memory gave him the clue for his contribution to the prize.
The damned dishcloth always dripped, and little Marquina ended up staining the tablecloth. To avoid this, they would put a plate under the dishcloth. But the plate accumulated oil and stuck to the dishcloth, and when he lifted it, it would fall on the tablecloth and stain it again. In any case, the boy was reprimanded for his repeated sloppiness. Marquina, now an adult, saw the opportunity to put an end to the torment that had haunted him since childhood. Thus was born the Marquina anti-drip dishcloth, which in 1960 received the Delta d'Or award from the ADI-FAD.
We could say that thanks to a simple mistake, the best toilet in the world was invented, but that would be a big exaggeration. Obviously, solving the problem was not that easy: there was a long creative process. Marquina had to analyze the products of the competition, take into account the technical and constructive possibilities of the time, make sketches and tests.
He noticed how the high-precision chemical instrument was manipulated, without spilling a single drop of liquid, and from there his prototype glass beaker was born: stable, transparent, easy to hold and fill.
Little by little, over the years, he perfected it. Today, millions of napkin rings are sold all over the world and the original model has been copied to the point of exhaustion. But, for now, it has no rival. Too bad he didn't patent it! Marquina, with the royalties , could have bought his mother tablecloths by the basket... but that's another story.
