It is a well-known fact that the Japanese have got going to the loo sorted. And that the kings of toilet toilette are Toto. And having pampered the bums of Asia since 1917, Toto are now touting their wares in Europe. Visitors to Via Solari 37/39 (Tortona District) can savour their latest product and first conscious attempt to woo a European market with a ‘washlet’ (i.e. robotic loo seat) designed by none other than Stefano Giovannoni.
It is not an uncommon story to link the notion of the self to space. Many of us do it as very young children when writing our names and addresses, expanding the address locating us in our street, town, city and country, to encompass the world, the solar system, the Milky Way, the universe.
Milan strikes me as a city not designed for rain.
The Chanel glasses that cover many fashionista’s faces are suddenly rendered useless and appear too posey, the miniature dogs found on the end of leads belonging to men who go for manicures look sad and grumpy and have wet feet. Street after street is dulled and appears a shadow of it’s former self with all the lure and colour washed down to halftones and quiet.
Universally themed exhibitions always err on the side of risk. When dealing with topics that affect such a wide audience, the element of danger lies in making assumptions about a global subject, especially one as personal and ambiguous as love. It came as a welcome surprise to discover that Love Design, a celebration of intimate or heartfelt products curated by Exquise Design, part defied the romanticised normals and part treaded old ground.
You know how it goes, you’re sat there listening to some young Shoreditch thing strum her out of tune guitar whilst shoving a vacuum cleaner down then microphone, ahem. When, just as you have turned your speakers up to maximum capacity Roberta pipes up and ruins it, ruins it all.
Yes Spotify, oh how great it was, and yes I’m cheap I could subscribe but I want to save my pennies, and just track her down and lodge the microphone so far down her throat that she can only mumble rhythmic static.
For those of you who are wandering what the hell I’m writing about, and whether I am slightly psychotic, fear not there’s a great new thing in Internet world, called Spotify. Hardly a justification for dismembering someone’s vocal chords, but wait…
‘Craft’ is a loaded term, often negatively associated with village fete knitted tea-cosies, knick-knacks or brown lumpy pottery. Wandering around Design Miami’s ‘Craft Punk’ exhibition at Spazio Fendi, it is refreshing to see a revival of interest in the idea of craft as a skilled creative discipline involving intricate knowledge of materials and hand-manufacturing techniques.
For the Salone week, Spazio Fendi has been converted into a buzzing hive of noise and activity, a performance space with young designers creating craft-based products in makeshift open studios.
In one corner you step into a cluttered leather workshop, with Simon Hasan’s bubbling pots and steaming tea-urns boiling leather ready to be converted into vases and stools. Hasan revives a forgotten technique, Cuir Bouilli, used in medieval times to make armour and drinking bottles. He twists and stretches the boiled leather over vase-shaped formers, using Fendi’s wooden shoe lasts, bits of scaffolding and other oddments to create curious but beautiful vessels. The leather hardens irreversibly, holding its shape, and is then hand-stitched and sealed with resin, resulting in functional vases suitable to hold water. As a performance, it is fascinating to see the transformation from a soft, shapeless sheet of hide to a rock hard three-dimensional product.
Peter Marigold also works in leather, using a box of miscellaneous off-cuts and scraps from Fendi’s studio to produce a meandering crazy-paving table. Growing every day, the tessellating tabletop sprawls across the space with contrasting flashes of colour and finishes – silvery snakeskin, hot pink and electric blue.
Other highlights to spot were Kwangho Lee’s knitted hosepipe chairs and Studio Glithero’s photo-sensitive ceramic vases, slowly rotating in front of a spotlight to produce ghostly patterns.
No hint of crocheted toilet-roll covers here.
Craft Punk
Spazio Fendi
Via Sciesa 3
Words and images: Tamsin van Essen
The Goldsmiths Design group at the Salone Satellite 2009 arrived in Milan with 4 bags of hand luggage, containing their computers and printers, and a miscellany of tape, pens, stickers, sketchbooks and white paper. On arrival at their booth, they built their space by scavenging the rubbish of the other exhibitors, creating tables, desks and chairs.
Planning of what to show that best represented Goldsmiths began about a month ago. They decided to create an interactive studio, asking the public what they want next from design.
Jaime Hayon’s Crystal Candy Set, a collection of nine pieces for Baccarat is the Grimm fairytale I’ve been looking for to saturate my unearthly, fantasy steeped dreams. Each one has an otherworldly feeling evoking images of curiosity cabinets full of locked secrets, wraithlike druggists’ jars lying in wait for jolted lovers and hastily buried desires. The sinister ruby reds, emerald greens, slightly tarnished gold and cut crystal conjure dreams of Absinthe drinkers lurching around in darkened corners to music no one can hear, culminating in blood being spilt after arguments over pocket watches and chipped gold coins.
Diesel’s outlook and flair touches every area of the globally admired brand and their recent collaborations with Patrizia Moroso and Foscarini are no different. An air of confidence and glamour exudes from the exhibition space within the company’s spacious penthouse on via Stendhal, prevented from appearing overly self-assured by an obvious grunge authenticity and what seems to be a genuine lust for the darker side of life. The collection’s title, ‘Successful Living from Diesel,’ is somewhat tongue-in-cheek and pokes fun at the swarms of suited businesspeople plaguing the shows of the bigger names in the interiors industry, searching for status within their wares. A mark of success, Diesel may only be to some, but the claim of “living” cannot be challenged.
A good tonic to ostentatious and wildly out of context design can be found at the Prophets and Penitents show, which is being held in a wing of Sant’ Ambrogio, Milan’s oldest church. DAMn magazine has invited over 30 designers to submit prototypes to the show, dubbed “Confessions of a Chair”. Wandering in to a small chapel on the left of the main building, you are immediately struck by that stony coolness that always seems to pervade the atmosphere of religious places.
(more…)
