Design Week

Modem was there, visiting and documenting, therefore this is a selection of the shows that we saw and liked in Magenta and in Zona Tortona.

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Nouvelle vague, le nouveau paysage domestique français
Centre Culturel Français

The exhibition Nouvelle Vague featured a new generation of young French designers and expressed the will of the French design scene to be more present on the international level.
The one-room exhibition was small and neat with white plinth and white walls as a background for the pieces of four promising designers.
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Lamps, chairs, tables, showed a real attention to the details, smart technical solutions, elegance in the shapes, choice of materials and a pinch of humour. One could feel the influence of the older generation of contemporary French designers, but maybe, it was simply a true French touch enhanced by an easy-going Ricard-drinking opening.

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Alessandro Mendini for Bisazza
Triennale

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On the occasion of the Design Week, Bisazza payed homage to Alessandro Mendini. In celebration of more than twenty years of collaboration between the Italian mosaic tile company and the design master, the display featured "Mobili per Uomo" , "Il Cavaliere di Dürer", giant sculptures covered with Bisazza’s mosaics, and installations from the Fondazione Bisazza.

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Yii, Street life
Triennale

<sld(Yii)|left> The presentation of Yii’s new collection was held in one of the high-ceilinged room of the Triennale. The exhibition design by Nendo felt up the space with long transparent balloons attached to the ceiling, giving to the whole room a motion and to the visitor the feeling of exploring a lightweight forest.
The show featured pieces from Taiwanese designers and from several renowned designers, invited by Yii, who explored how to combine harmoniously the Taiwanese culture with their own style. Extremely refined crafts and techniques were demonstrated, and the projects, ranging from handcraft pieces to high tech development, showed the amazing diversity of Yii’s collection, and the efficiency of its art director Gijs Bakker.

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L’Italia in Croce
Triennale

In between all the design pieces, an event definitely stood out as the symbol of a politically engaged designer and artist. Gaetano Pesce took over the ground floor of the Triennale with an installation called “L'Italia in Croce” (Italy crucified.
The room was set up as the interior of a chapel, with candels, raws of chairs and pupiter. In the pitch black room, only a few lights were pointing at a tall cross in which an Italy is hung, as made of flesh, and dripping with blood. Italia in croce was first designed in the Seventies and as to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Italian Unity, the piece is displayed this year anew, together with Pesce’s text that has risen a debate to get rid of the conformism, righteousness, selfishness and conservatism wich, in the author’s opinion, have crucified his country.

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Dream Factory: People, ideas and paradoxes of Italian design
Triennale

<sld(dreamsfactory)|right> Curated by Alberto Alessi, the Dream Factory exhibition unfolded in a energetic and messy way the history of Italian design manufacturers who contributed to the contemporary fame and expansion of Milan Salone del Mobile.
Alberto Alessi together with Marti Guixe (set deign and graphic design) had been telling us the story of innovative people successful and failing companies and objects, best-selling products and icons of the last half century.
The exhibition was huge, and information was spread all over the room, as giant bubbles on the walls, on light boards, and one may had found difficut to focus and to digest all this imput. The whole first floor of the Triennale was filled up with objects of every size and shape, overwhelming by their colours, textures and famous features. Most probably to really see and grasp all the content of that Dream Factory exhibition, one would have needed a whole day, something nearly impossible during the busy design week...

As the final experience of the exhibition, visitors could enjoyed a field-like installation of the giant grass shaped Pratone sofa, a rest well deserved after such a dense exhibition.

Charlotte © modemonline.com