Here we are. Today, at 5 p.m., Design On Stage 2008, “Trascreativity” starts in the square opposite the Triennale in Milan. Surely, one of the most captivating events of the Fuorisalone 2008. Today’s guest will be Elio Fiorucci, whose “lips” is one of the most fascinating Prototypes d’Autore included in our first series. If you haven’t requested your free invitation yet, you are still in time to do so.

Our stand is nearly ready: for those who haven’t had the chance to visit the Triennale in the last few hours, below are some renderings of the architect Laura Villani, planner and organizer of the event.

The appointment today is at 5 p.m., Wednesday 16. As last year, we will follow the Trascreativity event in real time with photos, videos, comments together with our prestigious media-partners, Radiomontecarlo, with live radio broadcasts of the interviews with the guests, and Ultrafragola, the web TV dedicated to design.

In the previous posts, we revealed the “new” guests of Design On Stage Trascreativity for this year: Alessandro Mendini, Vivienne Westwood, Mario Bellini and Krizia. With them, we will see two protagonists of the 2007 edition return: Elio Fiorucci and Karim Rashid. Moreover, Claudio Porcarelli will be present, also this year, as official photographer of the event.

Elio Fiorucci is an aficionado of DesignTaleStudio events, in fact he took part to Design On Stage 2007 and to Grand Design Tour last autumn in Bologna. As last year, Fiorucci will be present at the inauguration on Wednesday 16.

As you can see in the video, last year Karim Rashid had a mind-blowing effect on our event at the Triennale, and w e expect the same from him again this year. Rashid will be present on Friday 18 at 7.00 p.m.

Also this year, Claudio Porcarelli, the photographer of the celebrities par excellence, will organize his photographic set inside our space for Design On Stage, in which he will immortalize the guests and the audience with his renowned ability for portraying photographs as art. Have a look at his interview from last year, with a small backstage of Sandra Bermudez’s session.

It is still possible to request a free invitation to Trascreativity, which allows you to take part in the events with Fiorucci, Rashid as well as other guests.

On Sunday April 20, Trascreativity at the Triennale in Milan will see the presence of Krizia (Mariuccia Mandelli), one of the most famous names of Italian fashion. After Elio Fiorucci ( a guest at the 2007 edition and returning this year on the opening day on Wednesday) and Vivienne Westwood, another famous fashion designer who created a ceramic slab for DesignTaleStudio. Below are details of her original drawing: believe us, the transgressive effect is assured!

To see the ceramic slab and to meet Krizia on April 20, you can request your free invitation.

At the end of her first ever catwalk show, staged at the Palazzo Pitti, Mariuccia Mandelli, Krizia (a name borrowed from Plato’s dialogue on feminine vanity) distinguished herself by winning the Fashion Critic’s Award. Her fashion is based on research, creativity, project and design, founded on a neat geometry but also rich in references and precious details. Every single fashion collection by Krizia has an animal as a lucky charm, with an increasing aggressiveness and a sort of jungle which has now become a ritual: Krizia’s zoo. Her fashion is also influenced by modern and contemporary art, a constant search for new materials as well as her famous plissé. Krizia, whose endorsements range from perfume to wine, has flagship stores all over the world as well as many franchise boutiques. In Japan alone there are 202 Krizia boutiques and 600 points of sale. Bestowed the honour “Commendatore della Repubblica Italiana”, she has been awarded with international prizes and dedicated exhibitions in the most renowned museums in the world, such as the Musée des Arts et de la Mode, Paris; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo. Mariuccia Mandelli supported the rebuilding of the La Fenice theatre in Venice and the Tourné del Piccolo Teatro in the USA for the Olympics in Los Angeles, since 1985 Spazio Krizia has hosted a series of cultural events with writers, artists, designers, musicians such as Doris Lessing and Ingo Maurer in attendance.

Recently Krizia have introduced the new autumn-winter 2008-09 collection, caracterized by wiggly shapes sinuose and big volums. They have spoken among others Blogosfere Style & Fashion and LuxGallery.

The architect and designer Mario Bellini has always been a creative mind playing with provocation. Let’s think about his “Kar-a-sutra” ,a car concept he designed for the MOMA in New York in 1974 which has recently been rebuilt for an exhibition on the 70s at the Triennale in Milan, for which he has organized the setting. Bellini will be our guest in a no-holds-barred meeting with the journalist Roberto D’Agostino in the afternoon of Saturday, April 19, inside DesignTaleStudio’s Trascreativity set, opposite the Triennale.

To meet Mario Bellini on April 19 at the Triennale, you can request your free invitation.

Milan-born Mario Bellini is one of the most renowned designers in the world. His work ranges from urban and architectural drawings to furniture and industrial design. His career as a designer started in 1963, as an industrial design consultant for Olivetti, for which he designed typewriters, calculators, computers and video appliances with special care given to the user’s needs, even if Bellini believes that ergonomics is just a starting point as man is more complex than a mere series of measurements. Amongst his products, the Divisumma 18 calculator in particular, will be remembered for its tactile feel and the plastic coloured carter covered in a rubber membrane. Another revolutionary product was the Yamaha ’73 cassette-recorder with its typical wedge-shaped design. During his career, he has collaborated with many Italian and international companies such as Artemide, B&B Italia, Cassina, Yamaha, Renault, Rosenthal, Vitra. Moreover, Bellini has been a consultant for Renault and Editor in Chief of Domus magazine. He was awarded the Compasso d’Oro as well as many other international awards and some of his work is permanently on show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Since the 80’s, he has predominantly worked as an architect in Europe, Japan, the United States and the United Arab Emirates.

Let’s start with the list of the guests who will be present at the forthcoming Design On Stage “Trascreativity” at the Triennale in Milan with Alessandro Mendini, who will be present on April 17, introducing the audience to his ceramic slab project for DesignTaleStudio. Below are details of his original drawings, a creation which is a composition of six slabs in 60×120 cm size.

To see the ceramic slab and meet the designer, you can request your free invitation.

Architect and designer, Alessandro Mendini is considered one of the foremost design masters of today. In 1989 he founded the Mendini Atelier in Milan and he has designed objects, furniture, planned spaces, installations, buildings always adding a personal touch. The Editor in Chief of magazines such as Casabella, Modo and Domus, various monographic volumes on his work and on his partnership with Atelier Alchimia have been published and translated into many languages. His main interest is neo-modern and contemporary design, and he is a design consultant of international repute, whose collaboration for international brands such as Alessi, Philips and Swatch as an image and design consultant has led to the creation of world-wide famous products. He is an honorary member of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, he has been awarded the Compasso d’Oro for design, the Architectural League prize of New York as well as Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in France. A Professor of design at the Hochschule fur Angewandte Kunst in Vienna, he has organized many exhibitions in Italy and abroad. His work can be found in museums such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. His architectural projects include, Alessi’s house in Omegna, the Bicchieraia theatre in Arezzo, a memorial tower in Hiroshima, Japan, and the Groningen Musem, Holland.

Following last week’s taster, we are ready to “officialise” the calendar for Trascreativity, the DesignTaleStudio event for Fuorisalone exhibition 2008, this year centred around the theme of creativity and transgression.

The suggestive space planned by Laura Villani in the square opposite the Triennale will see the presence of many guests such as Elio Fiorucci (16 April), Alessandro Mendini and Vivienne Westwood (17 April), Karim Rashid (18 April, at 19.00), Mario Bellini and Roberto D’Agostino (19 April), Mariuccia Mandelli Krizia (20 April), and Vito (20 April). In the next few days we will find out more about them.

As last year, the lens of Claudio Porcarelli will create a sort of “parallel diary” of the days, while Radio Montecarlo and Ultrafragolaweb-tv will have live broadcast and interviews with the guests.

Entrance by invitation only: to request your free invitation, please fill in the registration form on the Refin web-site.

The March issue of Casamica magazine contains a special insert entitled “Walls like pictures” dedicated to artistic ceramics for walls in which DesignTaleStudio’s Pareti d’Autore have been given a lot of editorial space.

Recently, we have been talking about interior designers who are still tied to a stereotypical vision of ceramics, a standardized material for floors, walls and every-day items such as vases, cups, small sculptures. In this sense, it is really pleasing to see that our innovative concept of “ceramic picture” is increasingly capturing the attention of journalists as well as that of the public.

Here are some photos of Costa Group stand at the recent SIGEP trade-fair in Rimini. The renowned interior design studio uses DesignTaleStudio ceramics both as wall covering and as decorative element, for innovative and trendy solutions in the field of restaurant and entertainment.

DesignTaleStudio will be present at SIGEP, the International trade-fair for ice-cream, confectionery and bakery industries opening today in Rimini.

DesignTaleStudio ceramics, in fact, cover the Costa Group stand (Pav. A3 – Stand 186), the renowned company leader in the planning of shops and venues dedicated to food and entertainment, a company that has already chosen our Pareti d’Autore for its most prestigious projects such as the Bar Gallery in Vicenza and Il Guscio in Genova.

We will post again in the next few days to tell you about the trade-fair and to show you some pictures of the stand.

Yesterday, we all awoke to some sad news: Ettore Sottsass, the dean and guru of Italian design, died as 2007 was coming to an end.

At the very time President Napolitano was giving his final year’s address to the Italian people, appealing to the Italian creativity, Sottsass passed away, and with him one of our greatest contemporary creative talents, an all round talent who was able to test himself constantly with modernity, to recreate himself and to be able to pit his wits against the greatest talents of the new generation. As were, at different times, Michele De Lucchi, Andrea Branzi, Matteo Thun and Aldo Cibic, to name but a few of the main “sons” of Sottsass.

We are pleased to remember that ceramic was one of the main materials Sottsass used to express himself: so, in this sense, it is worth remembering the longstanding partnership he had with Bitossi in the ‘50s and ‘60s, geared especially towards the creation of the vases and design pieces, that launched him towards the very summit of Italian design.

The links below may be of interest:

• Sottsass’s profile on Wikipedia and Design Addict
• A gallery of his work on Flickr
• Three interviews for Panorama, Rai Educational and Archimagazine
• The exhibition to celebrate his 90th birthday, Vorrei Sapere Perché, in Trieste, which runs until March 2008; and, less we forget, Ettore Sottsass – Work In Progress, held in London last Spring and which is the subject of the video at the start of the post, and the Design Museum at the Triennale in Milan
• The first reactions to the news of his death by some Italian bloggers: Designerblog, Designbuzz, Alfonso Fuggetta, Aurelio Valesi, Design Blog Sociale.