Milan Design Week 9-14 April 2013 – Review – Wednesday

Wednesday 10^th April 2013: Salone Satelite, Salone de Mobile, Moooi

By Dieneke Ferguson and Manuel Ruiz-Adame

8 May 2013

Salone Satelite

Wednesday was the day to go to the Salone Satellite and say hello to the curator Marva Griffin Wiltshire. We loved the Salone as every year uninterruptedly to 2010, since the inauguration of the new exhibition centre (Fiera Milano) in April 2006, we have participated giving the opportunity to designers from the UK to promote their work. You can see here further details of our shows in Milan.

This year’s theme was Design and Craftmanship: Together for Industry and were presented through four artisanal workshops, in function of the materials involved: Wood, Glass, Metal and a Special Digital workshop.

Fortunately, we were on time for the SaloneSatellite Awards that were given out to the best Lighting and Office designs in 2013.

The best designers were, 1^st prize (10,000 Euros) Tania de Cruz from Portugal, 2^nd prize (5,000 Euros) to an Italian based in the UK and Italy, and 3^rd prize (2,500 Euros) to three designers from India.

We were sad though to see that although colleges were present from all over the world, there were none from the UK – a huge gap as having exhibited here in a group or with a college gives the designers the courage to then show on their own or with a sympathetic designer.  The Salone enables you to exhibit 3 times. This is so sad and we felt it is really important that more designers from the UK are given the opportunity to exhibit. There were only 5 design companies from the UK.

Salone de Mobile  

From the Salone Satelite we went to the Salone de Mobile.

Huge as always it had the biannual Euroluce, the International lighting Exhibition and SaloneUfficio, the International Workspace Exhibition.as well as the office exhibition. In Euroluce there was a strong focus on LED lights, and bringing technical and formal innovation together with quality and creativity. 

In addition the French Architect Jean Nouvel curated an installation called Project: office for Living which consisted of five unusual work situations developing his main strands of his vision of the workspace.

 One of the trends that were present at the Salone de Mobile was was the Salone called Re-editions – Revivals – past masterpieces being brought back under the spotlight. For instance Flos changing 5 iconic lamps designed by Gino Sarfatti through a complex technological process to replace the original lightbulbs with LED sources.

 

Manuel’s favourite was The Standard Couch design by Francesco Binare at the Edra stand. It can take on different geometric shapes and allow free expression to the full range of physical postures.

Campana Beds

The Magis stand designed by Konstantin Gric was like an arena where the stage and part of the loggias display the new products designed by Grcic himself, by Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, Jaime Hayón, Philippe Starck, Stefano Giovannoni, Ron Arad, Naoto Fukasawa and Marcel Wanders.

A special section was dedicated to the Me Too collection, which sees new entries in the form of a modular bookcase by Giulio Iacchetti, a desk by Philippe Starck, models of vehicles by Floris Hovers and new pups for Eero Aarnio’s Puppy.

Moooi

c/o Area 56
Via Savona 56
www.mooi.com

The Unexpected welcome – new collection

We ended up at Moooi where the Frame Mooi Award Ceremony was taking place. Director and founder Marcel Wanders was emphatic in his speech: We do not reward winners sending them to see our queen or our PRIME MINISTERS AS THEY DO in The United States. We do reward designers with what they need: fresh cash. And Moooi was generous. A Case packed with 500 Euro notes which added a total of 25,000 Euros was given to a group of three young Italian designers from the Impulsive Furnishing Unit whose design focused on furniture appropriate for social networks.

Being Dutch I have been following Moooi’s development. I love Marcel Wanders and Moooi’s work. Moooi was in the Zona Tortona in a stunning building that also has been used by Swarovski in the past.

For the show Moooi announced that they wanted to ‘reveal how a wide empty space can be magically transformed into several iconic, rich and colourfully dressed living quarters’.’

And indeed that is what they did. The living quarters were furnished with items from the current collection as well as many new exciting creations. The 4.5 meters high photography by Erwin Olaf with its hidden stories makes the settings like magic, with references to Rembrandt, in the newly opened Rijksmuseum.

There was a great atmosphere, many Dutch people and great first quality Dutch snacks. The show was stunning with the large photography of incredible photos creating fascinating room sets that reminded me of Rembrandt.  

The colourful mannequins are by Hans Boodt.

Tortona Design Week late at night

After the show through the absolutely packed Via tortona we tried to get our way back to the bridge to get to the Porta Genova tube. Masses of people and the stalls were doing well.

Tuesday 9^th April 2013, Maggazini
Thursday 11^th April 2013, 100% Design at Vivienne Westwood, Afrofuture, Superstudio Piu, Superstudio 13, Via, Designersblock
Friday 12 April 2013, Lambrate District, Mostsalone, DesignJunction, Droog
Saturday 13 April 2013, Triennale Design Week