The Fourisalone has closed and we will now start publishing some videos filmed during our event “From earth to the Earth” at the Triennale in Milan.
This is the recording of the introductory speech by architect Michele De Lucchi, the creator of our design set, during the press preview on Tuesday, April 21. Just a few words but extremely striking and sometimes even surprising, in fact, we all already knew about his love for wood, which he manifested in his work “casette a forma di casa“ (little houses in the shape of houses) but his recent rediscovery of ceramic and natural a href=”http://www.architetturadipietra.it/wp/?p=2436″>stones in general allows us to witness important creative opportunities.
Here is the text Michele De Lucchi wrote for the “Dalla terra alla Terra” (”From earth to the Earth”) installation, that will be held at the Milan Triennale during Fuorisalone 2009.
Ceramic is a marvellous material, not only as it is functional, cosy, solid, long-lasting, resistant, natural and eco-friendly, but also because it is earth. The earth is all we have and it is, both physically and metaphorically, our most precious material. Ceramic can create surfaces featuring any colour or finish and it allows for countless combinations of decors, natural imitations and creative geometries.
Too often though, we associate ceramic tiles exclusively with wall and floor coverings and too often we forget the majesty of this material, using it only to keep, unaltered over time, the welcoming feeling of a tile covered wall or flooring. But, a ceramic tile is earth, therefore it is an excellent building material, the best, the most versatile building material of all and thanks to this evocative quality, our tall and slender buildings came to life, as do our thoughts which fly high in the sky.
Thus, this rigid ceramic tile becomes a new material, rich in suggestions and hints, which take us by the hand into a new era, where ceramic cladding is not simply a mere covering skin but a marvellous material which, sprung from earth, brings all of us, contemporary man, back to the Earth.
Krizia was the guest on the last day of Trascreativity at the Triennale in Milan. The fashion designer told us about the different aspects influencing her style, relating some anecdotes about her career and not holding anything back when she was asked to express her idea on hot design topics.
In this video, Krizia comments on her ceramic prototype created for DesignTaleStudio: a composition of six 60×120 cm ceramic slabs depicting a huge panther and a leopard.
Towards the end of his speech during the Grand Design Tour, Elio Fiorucci once again underlines the importance of decoration and of the detailed use of colours which has always been a cornerstone of his aesthetics in the field of fashion-design. Summing up, he reported an interesting anecdote connected with his friendship with Andy Warhol in the 70s and a discussion they had about the theme of aesthetics in modern times.
In this extract, Elio Fiorucci goes into depth commenting on his ceramic slab prototype designed for DesignTaleStudio, and on “the mouth” as a positive visual archetype with a huge semantic potential yet easily understandable even though it was difficult to draw. The intense use of colour and the sensation of global sweetness and sensuality make this ceramic slab a “100% Fiorucci” work of art.
We have divided the speech Elio Fiorucci gave at the Stefano Forni gallery during the opening of the Grand Design Tour into 3 parts. This is the first extract.
Fiorucci underlines the key role of ceramics in contemporary design as well as the forsaking, by many architects, of the limited “functional” rationale of ceramic tiles: today ceramic is the perfect material for decoration thanks to its resistance and, at the same time, its strong aesthetic potential.
Just one day before the beginning of Design On Stage, event curator and designer Laura Villani speaks about the exhibition space.
The Design on Stage 2007 event taking place at the Triennale Museum during the Salone del Mobile trade-fair in Milan will, within a space planned with works of art mounted into the Pavillon facade, present the majesty of a place in constant motion where, every day, new stars bring to life the stage, that is also part salon, part photographic set and part location for a design exhibition.
Pareti d’Autore has been planned by prominent figures of the international elite, emanating from different artistic environments such as architecture, design, art, fashion and music. The extraordinary artists who designed the Pareti d’Autore created by DesignTaleStudio are Sandra Bermudez (art), Michele De Lucchi (design), Elio Fiorucci (fashion), Peter Halley (art), Romina Power (music) and Karim Rashid (design) each of whom will be, in turn, the protagonist of an audience introducing his/her creative world and posing for the set of Claudio Porcarelli, the renowned photographer to the celebrities who will be present with his entourage to realize an exhibition in progress that will create the portrait of the creative world of 2007 present at the Salone and present, in a book, his collection of photographs giving a panoramic view of the portraits gathered.
The show-casing space has, therefore, many different functions at the same time: première for the presentation of the Pareti d’Autore collection, photographic set where the audience is the direct spectator of the shoot, art exhibition to show the artists’ collections and the key concepts lying behind them. A place where the different art expressions can live together and where everyone can interact as an author, spectator, visitor or simply inter-actor among the different artistic currents involved.
The furnishing elements themselves offer an innovative perspective of the ceramic cladding, making it a real design surface, brilliant and seductive like a pure gold case. A constant commitment to design and project planning that saw me working on many different fronts: from the planning of the collection and of the Pavillon, to the event presenting the authors and the photographic work in progress.
We are honored to feature a post written by architect Paolo Cermasi about the booth he designed on behalf of Refin/DesignTaleStudio for the Coverings trade fair, beginning in Chicago on April, 17th.
The desert, a boundary of the human living and a metaphor of the mental abstraction, a nowhere-land for mystics, writers, artists and visionaries. “ Refin Ceramiche SpA “ installation, designed by Paolo Cermasi, is a small tribute to the extraordinary legacy of modern housing that a group of architects and designers built in the ’40 and ’50 in Palm Springs, California desert.
For 20 years, there has been experienced how the house could function in a very modern way within their environment. Amid volcanic boulders , in a fully mineral world, only steel, concrete, slate, glass and tiles could survive.
The desert demanded a new way of thinking how to live there. Fireplaces were called by winter nights, extensive fabric canopies were demanded for sun protection of the large tiled outdoors where people wanted to be when they were there. Under the massive flat roofs, wall divisions became thinner and fewer , making the houses transparent and weightless:
The western “desert architecture” opened the way to the most dominant character of the contemporany architectural research.
