Milano: Furniture Fair 2011 - seen around town

Lorenza de Medici and Rosita Missoni

            

Vincent Van Dysen and Sebastian Bergne

Guido Toschi Marazzani Visconti with Ludovica Palomba     

      

Chiara del Vecchio with Melvin Anderson + Mauro Brucoli

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Milano: Furniture Fair 2011 - Natura Morta + Midnight Suppers

Era Studio Apartment Gallery – Natura Morta: featuring the Underkitchen by Arabeschi di Latte.  Natura Morta or still life or even better dead nature was a project by Studio Toogood to celebrate the darker side of the natural world. The four outsized still lifes showcased in this provocative exhibition, were composed from an abstract collection of hand-made and found objects designed to celebrate the darker side of the natural world.  Adding to the air of the subversive, the exhibition was held in a private Milanese apartment – the Era Studio Apartment Gallery – where Toogood launched its second collection of objects: Assemblage 2. The striking pieces were displayed alongside erotic drawings from the archive of Piero Fornasetti.

Above: Faye Toogood with her Stratum Table made from  anodized aluminum. Inspired by rock strata, the surface of this table is made from layers of architectural aluminum profiles in different shades of black. Clamped together using heavy industrial brass fixings, the corrosion resistant aluminum tabletop sits on a pair of sand-cast aluminum trestle legs.

Midnight Dinners # 1.   During the week a series of midnight dinners were prepared by the Italian food designers Arabeschi di Latte under the heading Underkitchen working under the creative direction of Faye Toogood and incorporating beautifully abstract food styling by Francesca Sarti. Designer and for this occasion DJ, Barnaba Fornasetti opened the first midnight dinner with some seriously cool tunes.

 

Midnight Dinners # 2. Guests were asked to taste simple but intriguing ingredients including eggs dyed in tea and spices that appeared as giant marbles, black rocks formed out of cheese rolled in coal, a rustic dessert made from black bread soaked in water and dark sugar, and artichoke flowers carbonized to black on the balcony of the gallery. All served with Perrier-Jouët champagne.

 

Midnight Dinners # 3 – The Waitresses. In the dark shadows of the private midnight dinners, guests encountered waitresses wearing dresses designed by Toogood. Inspired by the shape of a bat.

Midnight Dinners # 4. Natura Morta also featured a collection of headpieces designed specifically for the events. Working collaboratively, Zara Gorman and Faye Toogood created a collection of six sculptural pieces that reflected the fierce and powerful nature of the exhibition.

 
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Milano: Furniture Fair 2011

 

Flos.   Sestosenso is spiral form light sculpture, a luminary apparition designed by Paul Cocksedge for Flos.

 

 

Alessi.  Two light bulbs from Alessilux’s first collection from a new period of Alessi research, which focuses on the world of lighting in collaboration with Foreverlamp. “…The topic naturally led us towards a sort of dissolution of the boundaries between the light bulb and the luminary: several of the designs are probably closer to a real luminary than a mere light bulb.  I believe this new design project will open the door to a revolution in the world of lighting: it’s as if we no longer needed to hide the boring, nondescript and often truly ugly bulbs…” Alberto Alessi.

Above: U2Mi2 and Vienna light bulbs designed by Federic Gooris.

Museo Bagatti Valsecchi – Venini.  The Venetian glass company, Venini celebrated it’s 90^th birthday with an exhibition in the rooms of the Palazzo Bagatti Valsecchi in the golden triangle of Milan with an exhibition of mostly lights and chandeliers.  The synthesis of the strong link between all new creations and the past history of Venini glassware, looked to the future and towards new targets.

Above:  Arnolfini designed by Studio Job.

Missoni Home and Richard Ginori 1735. Garden Party is the name of the event created by Missoni Home and Richard Ginori.  Nature, art, design and Italian artistic talent where all elements present at the Garden Party in the Missoni showroom.  The Protea flowers, the centerpiece for the table setting above were Rosita Missoni’s inspiration and the starting point for the collection where flowers and lines are alternated in the decorations of the different elements of the dinner service.

Mooi.  The Gothic Chair designed by Studio Job for Mooi, comes in ten different colors with contrasting buttons round the edge.

Flux.   Polypropylene, eco-friendly, waterproof, folding, light and original seating by Flux was designed by the company’s founders Tom Schouten and Douwe Jacobs.

Nilufar.  Joseph Walsh’s Enignum III chair is made of briar-root and copper, with a padded seat made of silk.  The chair is inspired by the stratifications shaping and defining the age of plants and minerals in nature. 

Storialab.  Alena designed by Alice Stori with Petrus Gartler, is a chair for interiors that captures the poetic and the movement of a swing.  It is a calmly playful piece of furniture, thought for adults to re-live childhood memories. It is made of beech plywood and comes in two sizes.

Studio Zeta Milano – Van Heesch Design.  At The Studio Zeta Milano, Van Heesch Design presented their exhibition of Bikes and Parasols, in the photograph the Koper bikes.

 




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Milano: Furniture Fair 2011 - Designers and their products # 2

Lambrate: Via Ventura 5 -  Jambone and Yves Behar.  Jawbone and Fuseproject announce a new product category: the first intelligent wireless speaker and speakerphone called Jambox, designed by Yves Behar (above), which redefines how people can connect with all of their audio devices as well as creates new use cases.

The Jambox.
 

 

B and B Italia. Patricia Urquiola sits in her Husk armchair for B and B Italia.

 

 

Lambrate: Via Massimiano 23 – Diederik Schneeman.  A Flip Flop Story, products designed by Diederik Schneeman with discarded flip flops collected from the washed up shores of the East African shore.

Lambrate: Via Ventura 5 – Castor Design. Brian Richer (photographed with his Turo lamp) is with, Kei Ng the duo behind the Canadian Castor Design. N.B. Castor is French for beaver, a ”play on words” for being Canadian designers.  Materials and the reuse of materials is an important part of Castor’s aesthetics.  Burnt out light bulbs to make lighting, a rusty shipping container to make a sauna, this recontextualization of materials is a primary design consideration for the designers, who also own and operate a restaurant called Parts and Labour in Toronto.

           

Castor Design.  Invisible  Chandelier and Tank Light.

Sawaya and Moroni.   William Sawaya and his Meteo chair for Sawaya and Moroni.

Sawaya and Moroni.   Paolo Moroni and his Rodion metal tables for Sawaya and Moroni.

 

 

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Milano: Furniture Fair 2011 - Design Academy Eindhoven

Design Academy Eindhoven – The national park of Biesbosch.  The National Park of Biesbosch is in the Dutch area of Dordrecht.  Both to enhance the recreational experiences and awareness of nature for the public, ex-graduate students of the Design Academy of Einhoven where asked to submit proposals for Landinwaarts projects for new Biesbosch experiences and studies for the boundaries of the island and city of Dordrecht.

Above: Sheaves by Steven Banken. Traditional crafts from the Biesbosch come to life with the seasons.  Reeds and willow twigs are cut in winter and bundled to be used as recreational benches in summertime.

Design Academy Eindhoven – The national park of Biesbosch.   Buoys for Water Navigation by Sabrina Koning-Woud.  Woven willow buoys distinguish the various water routes for different boats.  Based on a story of Saint Elisabeth flooding of the area in 1564.

 

Design Academy Eindhoven.  An Ode to Tape Water by Lotte de Raadt.  With her traditionally crafted Tap Water Carafe, Lotte de Raadt intends to promote the consumption of tap water.  The shape of the carafes betrays the origins of the water. And the stopper clearly displays the place where the contents were drawn from: from the tap, naturally. 

 Design Academy Eindhoven.  Form Informed by Physics by Saskia van der Steen. Van der Steen has performed extensive experiments with water in order to fathom its properties.  Observing the refraction of light in the water, the mirroring effect, the surface tension and the shape it takes on when it is set in motion, she has succeeded in capturing these qualities in Water Lens, a water filled glass seating object.   

 Design Academy Eindhoven.   A Wind Powered Anti-Landmine Ball by Massoud Hassani.  During his childhood in Afghanistan, Massoud Hassani would make miniature models to be blown by the wind.  Sometimes they would end up in a minefield, where he could not retrieve them. Now Massoud’s wind-powered creations are designed specifically for minefields.   Like a giant clump of dandelion seeds, his Mine Kafon will roll about, detonating any mines in its path.

 

Design Academy Eindhoven.  A City For A Mixed Bird Community by Eveline Visser.  Visser has designed Bird City, a city for a mixed bird community.  33 nesting boxes, catering for the housing needs of 33 different species of birds, to form a breeding ground for the winged inhabitants of the city.

 

Design Academy Eindhoven.   The Wiki Truth by Kyra van Ineveld. In the past, the big fat encyclopedia on the bookshelf was THE source of information.   Now there is Wikipedia, where the truth is formed by 1000 opinions.   “This online ‘wisdom of the crowd’ is turning the truth into something transient,” Kyra van Ineveld says.  She asked Wikipedians for the pages that had been changed most often.   Printed on her own black and white printer, but bound to form a classic encyclopedia, the top five of these pages form a series of impressive reference books.  Bizarrely thick books, some measuring thirty centimeters; on Obama, the Catholic church, the war in Gaza, global warming or ‘race and intelligence’.  As you browse you can see the shifts and changes in the explanations: nothing is fickle as the truth.

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Milano: Furniture Fair 2011 - seen around town

                                              Vincent Darre

Murray Moss

 Marta Marzotto - Nathalie Jean and Xavier Lust - Pilar Viladas and Andreas Kokkino

 Lisa Corti

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Milano: Furniture Fair 2011 - Principia – Rooms and Substances of the Next Arts exhibition

Piazza del Duomo - Principia – Rooms and Substances of the Next Arts exhibition. The ambitious 2011 project entitled “Principia – Rooms and Substances of the Next Arts” conceived and curated by Denis Santachiara  (in the photo) in collaboration with the Solares Fondazione delle Arti, involved erecting a “molecular” pavilion in Piazza Duomo, split into 8 rooms – each of which represented a principium rooted in science, as a trigger for creating audio, visual architectural and industrial works of art.   “Principia” is not an exhibition based on the relationship between art and science; it puts the accent on creative potential channeled through scientific principles as the source of artistic output. The ultimate aim is the revolution of language as aesthetic stupor, generating anew the sort of emotion triggered by one of Canaletto's vedute, yet without necessarily understanding all the generating principles of perspective. “Principia” is the art, design, architecture, music, fashion that could all be sparked, it is not the point of arrival of creation but its point of departure. 

Second Nature Room – works that through bio and biotech principles propose other natures.   A detail of the Shroud 2010 sculpture in grass, jute and wood made by Ackroyd & Harvey.

Second Nature Room.   By Shroud 2010, Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey.

No Norm Room – authors propose the principles of augmented reality as non-coherence of space.  Julius von Bismarck stands by his Image Fulgurator 2008, which is a device for physically manipulating photographs. It intervenes when a photo is being taken, without the photographer being able to detect anything. The manipulation is only visible on the photo afterwards.

Personal Factory Room – production of works upon the principles of the “personalized serial” in which every industrial product is a unique creation every visitor is the sculpture of himself.   Dr. Manel Torres and his models are wearing Fabrican Spray-on fabric which he developed.   It is applied instantly the non-woven fabric in natural or synthetic fiber adheres to wet or dry surfaces.  It is dispensed from an aerosol can or spray gun and is useful for industrial, commercial medical and domestic uses.  It also supports fragrance, color, texture and pharmaceuticals and can be re-used and recycled.

No Gravity Room – works that research the principles that oppose gravity. Luca Pozzi.

 No Gravity Room.   Raymond’s Three, 2011, in the foreground a black marble piece on electromagnetic levitation on the wall a detail of Wall Strings # 3, 2011 in aluminum, nylon xtreme, ping-pong balls, neodimio magnets, suckers 200x200cm.

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