Automobile Design – World’s First Bamboo Car
This first bamboo car in the world is made by a Filipino designer.
By Thelma Sioson San Juan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
World-renowned Filipino furniture designer Kenneth Cobonpue has designed what must be the first and only bamboo and rattan car in the world, and it’s drawing considerable curiosity and rave in an exhibit in Milan, Italy.
“Phoenix”—the name Cobonpue has given his automobile design—has a form made of rattan, bamboo, steel and carbon fiber. It projects this era’s thrust towards artisanship and craftsmanship, biodegradability and environment-friendliness, as opposed to assembly-line production and high technology—the contrast between man’s handiwork and machine. By coincidence, the car is unveiled at a time when the world is facing the horrors of potential nuclear calamity, the fallout from a technology reduced at the mercy of nature.
Last month Phoenix was sent off to the “Imagination and Innovation” exhibit in Via Tortona in Milan. The exhibit has invited designers and artists from all over to display their works in a museum-like setting. Cobonpue is among them. When the organizers saw Phoenix, they decided to display it in the front section of the exhibit area on the ground floor.