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12 May

Knoll

12 May, 2016
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In 1938 Hans Knoll, German emigrated to the U.S. due to racial laws, she opened a small laboratory for the creation of furnishings to create modern interiors and in 1943 she married Florence Schust, architect and designer graduated from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills in Michigan and with her enlarged the company, which in 1946 it became Knoll Associates, and then finally changed into 1951 into Knoll International, a name still in force.

The two spouses immediately call Florence Knoll’s classmates to design for the company such as Eero Saarinen, son of the director of the school, the Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen, and Harry Bertoia, at the registry office Arieto Bertola sculptor and designer of origins Italian. Everyone involved within the Knoll embraces the creative genius of the Bauhaus and the Cranbrook Academy of Art, which was then an American interpretation of the Bauhaus school itself, to create new types of furniture and environments for everyday life, for home and work. Craftsmanship combined with technology through the use of design fixes their point of view and shapes the values that still live within the company today.

In 1957 Eero Saarinen designs what is still the most successful product of Knoll today, or the Tulip series, made up of chairs, tables and small tables with continuity between the shell and the base, convinced that “the lower parts of the tables and chairs create an intricate and irritating confusion … wanting to end the chaos of the legs; wanting to make a chair a unit again. ” The Tulip table, better known by the name of Saarinen, is still today the best-selling, most imitated and most desired table by design enthusiasts in its variants with the top in white or black laminate, or in marble in multiple colors.

Harry Bertoia instead creates a collection of chairs for the Knoll, inspired by those of the Eames couple, where the theme of discontinuity returns: a steel rod easel support holds a steel rod mesh body of various shapes. The Bertoia collection turns out to be a true masterpiece, a meeting point between design and art: a light and transparent chair, where the air, which passes through the metal mesh, becomes the true protagonist of the project.

Since the early years, Knoll has distinguished itself from the other famous American furniture design company, Herman Miller, for the choice of an extremely rigorous and rationalist design and for the courageous re-presentation on the market of some historic furnishings such as those designed by the Maestro. Mies Van Der Rohe: the Barcelon collection, which still remains one of the best-known design icons today.

Following the premature death of Hans Knoll in 1955, his wife Florence took over the reins of the company, preferring then to leave the presidency in 1960 to fill the position of artistic director of the design department; throughout his long life his motto will be “Good Design is Good Business”. Florence Knoll designs some very elegant furnishings for her company, which are useful for furnishing public and private spaces, among the most important in America, for illustrious private customers or public companies. Among them we can remember the Florence Knoll sofa with rigorous shapes, on a chromed steel structure, the tables with elementary and refined shapes with marble or glass tops and the containers, later many imitated, in natural or lacquered wood on a steel base polished chrome.

In more recent years, Knoll has made use of the collaboration of the best contemporary international designers such as Frank O. Ghery, Piero Lissoni, Barber Osgerby.

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12 May

Molteni

12 May, 2016
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Molteni & C was founded as a craft company in 1934 in Giussano in the province of Milan (later in the province of Monza and Brianza), by Angelo Molteni, a businessman from Brianza, among the promoters of the Milan International Furniture Fair, which will see its first edition in 1961 In the first post-war period the company made furniture starting from the trunk and covering all the production phases and in the mid-1950s it participated in the first “Selective Exhibition – International Furniture Competition” in Cantù, with a project by the Swiss architect Werner Blaser, a pupil by Alvar Aalto and assistant to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who wins first prize. The chest of drawers, with the triple fork geometric joint, is the first prototype of modern furniture and has recently been reworked in a precious numbered and certified edition.
1968 is the year of the revolution: in a few months, production is converted from classic to modern, to create well-designed furniture, designed for the series; Luca Meda, a pupil of the Ulm School, is the man of the revolution, his Iride containers presented at the Salone del Mobile in 1968. The following year the complete conversion to design furniture took place, followed by the purchase of the Unifor companies and Citterio, in the office sector and, in 1979, of Dada, a kitchen furniture company. Over the years Molteni & C therefore becomes a reality for the production of furniture.
During the artistic direction entrusted to Luca Meda, the architects Aldo Rossi and Afra and Tobia Scarpa are called to design for Molteni; Aldo Rossi will design some now iconic furnishings such as the theater sofa, the weekly Carteggio and the Milano chair, rare examples of the Maestro’s forays into the world of design.
In the 1990s, however, collaboration began with some Italian and international designers, including Jean Nouvel, Foster and Partners, Patricia Urquiola, Rodolfo Dordoni, Hannes Wettstein.
In 1994 Molteni & C received the Compasso d’Oro for Lifetime Achievement. “Among the protagonists of the Italian furniture culture”, says the jury, “he has been able to present an offer of products designed with constant dignity, safe quality and a broad vision of the cultural context”. In the same year Jean Nouvel designed the Fondation Cartier in Paris, Molteni created all the furnishings through Uniforo: thus the Less series was born, an icon of design in the world, tables with minimal thickness and with elementary and rigorous shapes.
In early 2000 To support international expansion, Molteni & C created the Padded division and, in a few years, established itself among the best international manufacturers with the projects of Patricia Urquiola, Ferruccio Laviani, Rodolfo Dordoni, Hannes Wettstein and Ron Gilad and many others.
In 2012 Molteni & C presented the Gio Ponti Collection at the Salone del Mobile, furnishings never mass produced by the great Milanese architect, in collaboration with Gio Ponti Archives. The collaboration between Molteni and Gio Ponti’s heirs continues annually thanks to an exclusive agreement for the rights of the Maestro’s projects.
The Molteni Group recently celebrated 80 years of activity with an exhibition at the Modern Art Gallery in Milan, entitled 80! Molteni. With an installation curated by Jasper Morrison and the graphic project by Studio Cerri & Associati, prototypes and furnishings from all the companies of the Group recount, for the first time, 80 years of experience, quality and innovation. The exhibition has become the core of the Molteni Museum in Giussano.
As of April 2016, Belgian architect and designer Vincent Van Duysen has been appointed creative director of the Molteni & C brands; after the success of the Gliss Master collection of wardrobes, the new collaboration focuses on coordinating the image and the design and artistic choices of the group.
Born as a company specialized in the production of systems, today the company still fully produces in Italy an integral offer for the home, from containers to upholstered items, from chairs to tables … flanked by a contract division that manufactures cruise ships, theaters , museums, hotels, restaurants and collective residences.

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12 May

Moooi

12 May, 2016
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Moooi EN

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For 20 years now, Moooi has inspired and seduced the world of design with sparkling, innovative, ironic and courageous projects.
The Dutch company was founded in 2001 by Marcel Wanders and Casper Vissers initially to propose the projects of Marcel Wanders himself, who in the 90s made himself known to the famous Dutch collective of designers Droog Design mainly thanks to his knitted chair, Knotted Chair, later edited by Cappellini; Wanders’ designs are often too original for design companies, so this publishing house is founded in order to maintain its independence and creativity intact: Moooi which means “beautiful” in Dutch.
Marcel Wanders’ capricious, unique and provocative style is fully expressed in the Moooi collection. In addition to the creations designed by Marcel himself, Moooi also edits other well-known designers such as Bertjan Pot, Jasper Morrison. Ross Lovegrove, Studio Job… enriching the catalog every year with always surprising pieces.
The company does not hesitate to leave the usual and aesthetic paths of design by editing unusual and courageous creations such as the surprising spider-shaped chandelier, composed of a multitude of technical desk lamps and called Dear Ingo in tribute to the Master of light Ingo Maurer , created by Ron Gilad in 2003 or even the “charred” Smoke wooden armchair from 2002 by Maarten Bass, who later became one of the most acclaimed Dutch designers.
In this way, the Moooi collection easily combines a suspension in pressed white paper by the creative couple Studio Job and a life-size black horse wearing a lamp on its head, a project signed by the Swedish studio Front Design and part of a particularly iconic collection completed from a rabbit_lampada and a pig-table.
Many designers are now called to collaborate with the company, always under the artistic direction of Marcel Wanders, now sought after by all the most important international design companies, from Flos to Baccarat, from Cappellini to Alessi; recent collaborations include those with Jaime Hayon, Nika Zuoanc, Joost van Bleiswijk.
Moooi’s style has not changed since the beginning and has remained exclusive, bold, playful … based on the belief that design is a matter of love, irony and joy. They are timeless objects, which possess the uniqueness and character of antiques combined with the freshness of modern times. This merger leads the brand to focus more and more on the production of iconic and spectacular objects.
With this unique and iconic mix of lighting, furniture and accessories, the company creates interior spaces decorated with a variety of inspiration of models and colors to embrace any type of space, domestic and public, and makes people of different ages, cultures fall in love and personality.
This vision of unexpected home always highlights new ideas with a clever touch of magic. Behind the apparent irony and playfulness there are always intelligent projects, the result of continuous reflections on the way of living and living and its continuous changes.

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12 May

Moormann

12 May, 2016
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Moormann EN

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Nils Holger Moormann nel 1982, dopo gli studi in giurisprudenza, si appassiona al mondo del design e decide, da autodidatta e lontano dalle logiche di produzione delle aziende di arredi, di sviluppare mobili che mostrassero un linguaggio formale ridotto e soluzioni molto precise nei dettagli, sinonimo di quella corrente chiamata “Neues Deutsches Design”.

I pensieri principali di Moormann sono la semplicità, l’intelligenza e l’innovazione, che devono essere applicati contemporaneamente per il benessere della società. Il primo traguardo è quello di analizzare le esigenze alla luce dei nuovi modi di vivere e di lavorare, che spesso e sempre di più coincidono all’interno degli stessi spazi; il secondo passaggio è quello di individuare delle soluzioni progettuali concrete, semplici, ma non banali, per risolvere tutte le esigenze. Si arriva, attraverso questo semplice processo, alla realizzazione di soluzioni, in un primo tempo dedicate all’idea di contenere e di fare ordine, individuando un modello di libreria universale, facile nel concetto e nel montaggio, ma di estrema raffinatezza ed eleganza; un pezzo, come quelli successivi, fuori dalle mode e dalle tendenze, intriso di atemporalità per diventare un capisaldoi del design.

Per realizzare tutto questo è stato necessario individuare il luogo giusto, ove poter lavorare, progettare e produrre i pezzi ideali; e quale posto migliore per trovare le radici di questi mobili se non tra il clima di montagna crudo e le vive tradizioni nordiche, tra le bestie dei campi e una sentita attenzione per l’equilibrio ecologico? Il luogo montano e naturale, lontano dai consueti distretti industriali e dalle città, è stato fondamentale per la creazione e l’evoluzione di questa filosofia. Naturalmente tutto il progetto non può più essere ottenuto da una persona sola come all’inizio, ma da un team affiatato e convinto, composto ora da circa 40 menti brillanti.

Moormann non è del tutto facile da classificare. Non è solo design nordico, che risuonerebbe in modo limitativo, avendo all’interno del team molti progettisti internazionali. La sua estetica, seppur vicina agli esempi finlandesi, svedesi e danesi, è più articolata, frutto dell’unione di una tecnologia impeccabile e di uno sguardo attento alle forme accattivanti e sobrie allo stesso tempo. Il legno utilizzato per tutta la collezione è sempre il medesimo, ovvero betulla chiara di alvariana memoria, ma anche mdf naturale, con effetto molto ecologico, ma non povero, spesso abbinato a linoleum o laminati dai colori assoluti, bianco o nero, talvolta rosso. La libreria, poi interpretata nei decenni in molteplici modi e con innumerevoli varianti, rimane il prodotto principale della collezione, alla quale si sono gradualmente aggiunti letti, tavoli, scrittoi, contenitori e piccoli accessori di grande bellezza e funzionalità.

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12 May

Pastoe

12 May, 2016
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Pastoe EN

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Pastoe was born in Holland in 1913 in Utrecht for the creation of furnishings, in particular armchairs and sofas, but since 1948 it has focused on wooden containers in a modern and functional key. The sobriety and the technical and aesthetic refinement have always been the main guidelines in all the collections that have alternated, up to the most recent and beloved Vision series: container containers, modular in a huge amount of sizes, possibilities and colors, with the particularity of the pressure opening and the thicknesses at 45 degrees. The result, extremely refined and elegant, is much loved by architects, design lovers and designers for the purity of its aesthetics.

The Pastoe collection is therefore the result of many years of experience in the development and production of the highest quality furniture. Every day we invest again in quality, in the continuous search for further refinement of the technique and greater functionality, without stopping, until we reach the desired result.

When visual and material sustainability is increased, even the smallest details become important; the visibility of a screw or the shape of a hinge are therefore treated with extreme care and attention. The pursuit of perfection is, and will always remain, inherent in the company’s culture. Pastoe furniture is still made in the historic Utrecht factory, taking care to maintain traditional and artisan quality. In order to obtain the best result, production is still largely manual. Thanks to this attention and preparation, an impeccable piece of furniture of great value is born.

Pastoe has always remained faithful to the modular principle. Current furniture systems lend themselves to making sideboards, TV furniture, containers … and they can be defined as figurative works of art. The furniture is not only part of the wall, but also the wall becomes part of the furniture thanks to the play of shadows. Pastoe furniture leaves room for additions according to your taste and thanks to their shape they can be easily combined with other styles and brands.

The connection with art is always very close: in the development of its furniture, the company involves the ability of architects and artists and their sense of form, the keen eye for detail and the play between light and space. It starts with shapes, volumes and colors, elaborating them, to translate everything into furniture. This leads to furniture that is both functional and artistic: a piece of furniture as an object. In addition to the collaboration with architects and artists, the product development section, always at the forefront, translates the signals coming from the market into furniture in line with Pastoe’s design vision.

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12 May

PP Mobler

12 May, 2016
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PP Mobler is a family-run Danish carpentry workshop founded in 1953 and has a strong tradition of crafting high-quality designer furniture. Motivation has always been a love of wood. The company’s philosophy is that technique, ingenuity and craftsmanship can be combined in the search for quality.
The catalog is almost entirely dedicated to the projects of the Danish architect Hans J. Wegner, who had a long and important partnership with this small Danish manufacturing company; Wegner loved to stop in PP Mobler’s laboratory, where his ideas took shape; here he could touch and perceive the professional connection between designer and craftsman and feel the pride and respect for high quality craftsmanship. For its part, the designer has always provided this small laboratory with exciting and difficult tasks, always perceiving the uncompromising request for quality and the commitment to experiment with the material.
Between 1960 and 1968 many of Wegner’s prototypes were developed at PP Mobler before going into production at other companies, while after 1968 the designer began to design the first models for the production of PP Mobler, a very important event for this small laboratory, which began to organize a small catalog on its own. Wegner continued his exploration of the possibilities of wood in terms of form and construction even more freely.
Today PP Mobler produces a wide selection of Wegner furniture, most chairs, especially those with the most complex construction, that no one else could make. Among these, “The Round One”, as Wegner liked to call it with its typical provincial modesty, is one of the most famous Danish furniture in the world, summarizing in a simple and modest way the essence of the tradition of woodworking and the philosophy of the Danish design. It is Hans’ most important work. J. Wegner.
When Johm F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon met in the first televised election debate in 1960, they sat on the Round Chair, chosen primarily for its great comfort and its genuine quality; eventually the Americans found a new and more eloquent name for this chair: they called it, and continue to call it, simply “the chair”.
In the PP Mobler catalog there are many other Wegner projects, not only chairs, but also armchairs, tables and desks, such as the Peacock Chair from 1947, the Folding chair from 1949, the Papa Bear Chair from 1951, the Rocking chair from 1984, The Circle Chair from 1986…
A separate discussion should be reserved for the 1950 Flag Halyard Chair relaxation armchair, one of the very rare Wegner projects not in wood, but with a stainless steel structure and 240 meters of rope to form the seat and back, with the addition of a long-haired sheepskin resting on top. Despite having obvious preferences for wood, Wegner shows his bold and courageous appetite for creation in this project. With the Flag Halyard Chair, the designer pays tribute to the first modernist designers such as Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and Marcel Breuer, and proves to be able to master stainless steel with the same elegance as the wood master. The Flag Halyard Chair remains one of the highest examples of Danish design and one of the most desired royal armchairs in the world.

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12 May

Vitra

12 May, 2016
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Vitra EN

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Vitra is a Swiss company dedicated to improving the quality of homes, offices and public spaces through the power of design, founded in Weil am Rhein in 1950 by Willi Fehlbaum, owner of a furniture store in nearby Basel. Its products are developed in an impeccable, intensive design process, which brings together engineering excellence with the creative genius of internationally renowned designers. The goal, since the early 1950s, is to create functional and stimulating interiors, furniture and accessories through some guiding principles such as longevity of materials, impeccable construction, high quality and the importance of aesthetics, as demonstrated from the great classics, many still in production since 1950.

The great American design classics were in fact the starting point of the Vitra catalog, thanks to the agreement already in 1946 with the American Herman Miller for the purchase of the rights to produce the vast collection of Charles and Ray Eames in Europe. Willi Fehlbaum was struck by the plans of the spouses Eames during a trip to America and wanted at all costs to produce them and propose them to the European market. Masterpieces such as the Eames Chair, the Aluminum Group, the Upholstered Lounge Chair, the Elephant Stool, the Fiberglass chairs … therefore began to be known and appreciated also in Europe thanks to Vitra. Subsequently to this production were added the works of other historical masters of international design such as George Nelson, Verner Panton, Jean Prouvé and to follow, in more recent years, the works of contemporary designers and architects such as Antonio Citterio, the Bouroullec brothers, Mario Bellini, Ron Aram, Jasper Morrison, Alberto Meda, Philippe Starck …

After a terrible fire, which devastated the entire factory in 1981, the English architect Nicholas Grimshaw was called to design the new factory, ready in just 6 months, which was joined in 1986 by another building by the Portuguese architect Alvaro Siza, starting what will become the future Vitra Campus, or the most important grouping in Europe and probably in the world of contemporary architecture in a limited space. Among the many buildings we can mention the Vitra Design Museum by Frank O. Gehry from 1989, the Tadao Conference pavilion from 1993, the Zaha Hadid Fire Station from 1993, the installation in 2003 of a petrol designed in 1953 by Jean Prouvé until the most recent VitraHaus by the architects of Basel Herzog & de Meuron in 2010, the Diogene structure of Renzo Piano in 2013 or the factory of the Japanese studio SAANA in 2013. The Vitra Campus has become in a few years destination much frequented by design enthusiasts and not only, thanks to the guided visits to the various factories, the numerous exhibitions and displays on design in its museum and to many initiatives related to the world of design and art.

Currently the Vitra catalog is divided into 2 parts. one dedicated to the home, the Home Collection, and one dedicated to contract and office, with a lot of sensitivity towards smart working. In these 2 parts the proposals of the Masters of design such as the Eames, Jean Prouvé, Verner Panton are always balanced … and the contemporary projects of designers such as the Bouroullec brothers, Hella Jongerius, Konstanto Grcic, Jasper Morrison and many others.

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12 May

Wewood

12 May, 2016
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Wewood is a Portuguese brand founded in 2010 in Granda, the result of the research and development of Móveis Carlos Alfredo, historic company specialized in the production and export of traditional solid wood furniture since 1964: a new division aimed at contemporary design and more experimental forms, without forgetting the solid roots linked to the tradition of woodworking.

The catalog consists of a part dedicated to the home and another for the office and the world of work; each piece comes from the inspiration and creativity of talented young designers and architects, transforming the wisdom and experience of local craftsmen into tangible reality. A small and young family, which takes care of all phases, from design to construction, from distribution to sale. In Portugal, in fact, especially in the areas surrounding the town of Granda, there is a great tradition of small manufacturing companies dedicated to the export of solid wood, in particular walnut and oak, and of some workshops for the creation of wood furnishings.

Wewood believes in the importance of high-end carpentry with the production of solid furniture in order to promote Portuguese culture and design, still little known in the rest of Europe, but with great potential and a long history behind it; The team, made up of very young kids, works every day to create products that represent values ??such as passion, function, aesthetics and know-how, which testify to the brand’s DNA.
The dedication present in all stages of production, and the combination of craftsmanship and high technology certify a natural product made with passion and competence.

The collection includes various types of furniture: containers, tables, chairs, sofas, all with a wooden structure, the result of careful craftsmanship combined with a design, which evokes the shapes and proportions of the 50s, openly citing some historical protagonists of the world of design, such as Professor Carlo Scarpa, among the best known and most refined personalities of Italian design. In fact, a sideboard of the same name is dedicated to him in walnut and oak, with inlaid sliding doors and legs from the typical 1950s line; the same belief is also available in other clearer and less elaborate variants.

A separate discussion must be dedicated to the Smart Shelf by designer Laurindo Marta, which represents one of the most iconic pieces of the entire collection: a bookcase that, thanks to the patented locking pins, can take on different configurations, having fun changing the shape and the size. The same is made of light oak or dark walnut.

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