Friday, September 16, 2011

Venice: The Peggy Guggenheim Collection – Hangar Design Group – Book Launch




The Peggy Guggenheim Collection: Hangar Design Group book launch.  The impressive Alexander Calder’s Three-Colored Dog, 1973 sculpture greets guests arriving by boat on the Grand Canal terrace of the PeggyGuggenheim Collection for the cocktail party and dinner to celebrate thirty years of Hangar Design Group and the launch of their book; as I told you before Ideas Not Airships.


HDG: as I told you before Ideas Not Airships. Micaela Portinari greets the Peggy Guggenheim Collection’s director, Philip Rylands together with Hangar Design Group’s founders the architects, Alberto Bovo and Sergio Manente winners of the prestigious Compasso D’Oro ADI 2011 prize for the design of the Sunset mobile home.



HDG: as I told you before Ideas Not Airships.  The Hangar Design Group book launch took place in the Nasher Sculpture garden of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.  In the background Maurizio Nannucci’s Changing Place, Changing Time, Changing Thoughts, Changing Future, 2003 neon sculpture and Anthony Caro’s First Light, 1990-93 steel work. The book stylishly displayed on crates is entitled; as I told you before Ideas Not Airships is published by Skira and celebrates the work, over the past thirty years, of the Treviso based group.


HDG: as I told you before Ideas Not Airships – pages # 1.  The history of the Hangar Design Group began in the 1980s in the Treviso countryside, and it is the story of an organizational model rather than an actual design style.  It is the story that began inside two old hangars for airships and testifies to an unshakable faith in work, pragmatism and in the principle that “things happen only if you organize your affairs in such a way that they can happen.”  This, together with the great ability of the founding duo, Alberto Bovo and Sergio Manente, two Venetian architects who are in many ways definite opposites, and of their creative to transform anything into a communication project, has made possible the development of the organization as well as its expansion beyond national borders.


 
HDG: as I told you before Ideas Not Airships – pages # 2.  As a modern day sketchbook, this volume consists of a collection of visual fragments that illustrate the creative processes and working dynamics of the Hangar Design Group.  It presents a selection of works and suggestions in the style of an action movie, which effectively expresses the character and skilled craftsmanship, which distinguishes the group’s professional model.



  HDG: as I told you before Ideas Not Airships – pages # 3.  The book represents a great deal more than just a collection of texts and images, since it illustrates better than any description the true soul of this creative think tank. 


HDG: as I told you before Ideas Not Airships – pages # 4.  Hangar Soul was the original title of the book, and has remained the underlying theme of this story made up of images.  It describes in a gripping narrative form the project developed over time since they were first put to test within the group, while being careful never to lose the sense of modernity.



Seen at the Hangar Design Group book launch.  The dean of design at the Iuav University of Venice, Medardo Chiapponi and design P.R. Evelina Bazzo.



Seen at the Hangar Design Group book launch. Luca Lando and his son Ludovico.


 

Seen at the Hangar Design Group book launch. Boxes containing popcorn and potato chips were displayed like a beehive.



Seen at the Hangar Design Group book launch.   The whole Hangar Design Group stands on the stairs of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in the Sculpture Garden and joke for a group photo with cut out butterfly sunglasses designed especially for Peggy by American artist Edward Melcarth.