Stallion was born from a fascination with craftsmanship and from the belief that, in a world of ever more advanced technology, objects that still carry the trace of the human hand take on a particular significance.
The starting point was the Arabian horse. Its silhouette, its movement, and its distinctive balance of strength and lightness.
The inspiration was Pogrom, one of the most distinguished stallions associated with the Janów Podlaski Stud, a place with more than two centuries of Arabian horse breeding tradition.
Through the generosity of the Stud, we were able to spend time with him and observe him closely. We photographed him in motion and among the historic surroundings of Janów. In one of the stables, we set up an easel and sketched his silhouette directly from life.
Those encounters revealed far more than the horse's anatomy. The way he stands, carries his head, engages his muscles and moves, and the way light changes his silhouette.
The sketches created in Janów later became the foundation for the relief formed on the roof of Stallion.
We did not want to translate Pogrom's image onto the car literally. We were more interested in what could be observed during the hours spent in his presence: the tension of his muscles, the rhythm of his movement, the light passing across his coat, and, above all, the character of the animal.
From these observations, the form of Stallion gradually emerged.
The greatest amount of time was devoted to an element that would ordinarily remain almost unnoticed.
The roof began its life as a flat sheet of aluminium.
Rather than relying on a ready-made form, the metal was shaped by hand. Gradually, using traditional metalworking tools and wooden bucks, the aluminium was given its final curvature. Preparing the underlying form alone took approximately two months.
Only then could work on the relief begin.
It was created entirely by hand, section by section. There was no die or mould from which another identical piece could be produced. Its final form was the result of countless small decisions made directly in response to the material.
The force of a hammer strike, the direction of a line, the depth of the relief, the transition from one surface to another. Each gesture influenced the way the metal would later receive and reflect light.
The roof alone required more than 3,000 hours of work.
The number gives some sense of the scale of the undertaking, yet it says relatively little about its essence.
More meaningful is the time people spent working on a single piece of metal. Returning repeatedly to the same areas. Correcting surfaces by fractions of a millimetre. Looking at them again and again from different angles and under changing light.
Hand-formed metal retains a memory of this process.
Seen closely, subtle variations in the surface and traces left by the tools remain visible. We chose not to remove them entirely. They belong to the object and allow something of the way it was made to remain legible.
For this reason, we regard the roof of Stallion as an artefact in its own right.
It remains part of the automobile, yet its form was conceived so that it could also be considered as an independent piece of craftsmanship.
Once the shaping was complete, work on the surface began.
The metal received several different finishes. Silver meets a deep, dark patina, accompanied by sparingly applied details of pale gold.
Their purpose was not simply to decorate the surface.
They were intended to allow light to reveal the relief.
Depending on where one stands, parts of the pattern almost disappear, only to emerge again moments later. The whole composition can only truly be understood by moving around the car.
A similar principle guided the design of the remaining elements of Stallion. The materials are intended to reveal their qualities gradually. Not every detail should be visible at first glance.
Some are discovered only when the door is opened.
Others only through touch.
Behind Stallion are designers, metalworkers, upholsterers, painters and craftspeople from a number of disciplines.
Many elements passed through several pairs of hands before they were considered complete.
With this way of working, authorship is difficult to attribute to a single person. The project takes shape between people. One craftsperson prepares a surface, another gives it form, another works on its finish. Each leaves within the object a small part of their own experience.
This human dimension of Stallion is particularly important to us.
Modern industry is capable of producing objects with extraordinary precision. Craftsmanship works to a different measure.
It requires time.
It requires patience.
And it requires people who spend years learning to understand a material well enough to know when to shape it and when to leave it alone.
The idea of One of One grew from the desire to create space for precisely this kind of work.
Without the need to design an element around its future reproduction. Without allowing every decision to be governed by the time required to make the next example.
Each project therefore has its own story, its own materials and its own techniques.
Once it is completed, its configuration is closed.
There will never be another identical Stallion.
Not because it would be technically impossible to build the same car again.
But because repeating several thousand hours of work by hand, by the same people, with the same gestures and the same subtle decisions, could never lead to precisely the same result.
Perhaps this is where the meaning of craftsmanship can still be found today.
In leaving space for time, material and the human hand.
Stallion is a record of that process.
An automobile that was allowed to take its time.
And an object on whose surface that time remains.
