Dedece Blog

Tom Dixon, kicked off Milan Design Week 2012 with a huge bang when he transformed the “Leonardo da Vinci” Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia, in the center of Milan, into a new ” Epi-Centre” of the Salone.

With its twenty-eight sections, from information technology to engines to astronomy, some 40,000 square metres of displays, and a massive 15,000 pieces in its collection, the “Leonardo da Vinci“  Museum is one of the most important technical and scientific museums in the world.

Originally a 16th-century monastery, the buildings have had various incarnations – military hospital (Napoleon), barracks (Italian army) and rubble (World War II Allied bombs).

It provided a rich backdrop to the work on display, with its historic cloisters now festooned with outstanding design by a range of designers and brands

 

Tom Dixon set up the Museum as a major hub for the freshest ideas in communication, food, culture, design and the digital industrial revolution. This collision of technology, culture and design was one of Milan’s highlights during Salone 2012.

MOST, as it was called, sought to rediscover and shed light into one of the most surprising exhibition spaces in the city, both to design week tourists and city residents

MOST inspired visitors to consider the “Process” as much as the product, and how our designs impact and improve our world.

MOST was a focus for a group of innovative and groundbreaking designers, curators and companies who shared the same global brand attributes in the fields of technology, art, design, fashion, materials, transport, publishing and new media.

 

With a plethora of brand installations scattered amongst the Museum’s permanent exhibits, visitors moved past World War 2 fighter jets, a Hall full of stream trains & a cavernous space filled with a variety of full scale sea craft – a great Industrial design experience mesmerised the Salone visitors.

Like Tom Dixon himself – the location is “Industrial to the Core”.

MOST
Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia
via Olona 6b

Marcus Fairs and his team relocated to Milan during the Salone Internazionale del Mobile to set up Dezeen Studio at MOST.

Dezeen Studio was furnished by Tom Dixon to resemble “The Factory” – the legendary studio established by Andy Warhol in New York in the 1960’s.

The purpose-built Dezeen Studio filmed a daily TV show that was uploaded to the Dezeen Screen website as well as being broadcast throughout the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia.

 

The daily show brought news of what was happening at MOST as well as interviews, performances, news, gossip… and even weather reports.

To get to Wrap Spaces small Via Tortona exhibition space – you just had to follow the neon orange arrows

Cooking in a kitchen? Drinking coffee in the living room? Working at the office? So traditional. Such old hat! In modern life, specific functions are no longer attributed to particular times and places. According to Marcel Losekoot and Samer Chalfoun we are on the eve of a shift in thinking.

The concept is one piece of furniture, from which you can open up a kitchen, an office, or a living room set.

Aside from a place to actually set yourself down, it includes everything you need for a basic house… all in one space. If you combined it with a futon or sofa-bed, you’d have everything except the bathroom in one space that changes throughout the day.

 

“The freedom to do what you want, is what makes Wrap Spaces so unique”, the design duo emphasise. “If the units are closed, you can live there in comfort. If – at an ungodly hour – you want to make a strong espresso, one press of the button will suffice. And do you want a fully equipped workplace? You can change the Wrap into a comfortable home office in no time.”

‘The new living’ inspired Samer and Marcel to create possibilities, which were unthinkable until then. “We wanted to add something to the 24/7 city lifestyle. Something that actually makes a difference!” says the duo. The result, Wrap Spaces, a multi-functional living environment where you can cook, work, eat and live. In whatever way you want to.

The Triennale Design Museum’s 5th Major Exhibition titled  “TDM5: Grafica Italiana”,  continues its engagement with the promotion and enhancement of Italian creativity, extending its research to an art that has always been viewed as minor or instrumental and giving it back the independent role it deserves.

More than a thousand works are on display presenting an incisive vision of Graphic Design in Italy during the 20th Century.

 

Seeking to bring earth and sky together, Fabio Novembre devised a large rainbow for the Triennale, which he extended out along the sides of the De Lucchi bridge to the Museum, a multicoloured welcome just over the exhibition’s threshold.

Carlo Vinti, the historian of the curatorial team, says: “We wanted to narrate a piece of the history of Italian production; graphic designers have been at its centre, being active players and an integral part of the history of Italian design, helping to build Italy’s economy and society.” Giorgio Camuffo adds, “The time really had come to focus on this discipline and I am happy that the Triennale believed in this project. Graphic design is not a servant of [industrial] design, as the stereotype would have us believe, but a driver at the heart of cultural processes.”

 

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Certain names and dates distinguish the life of a company just as they distinguish the life of each one of us:

1889 • Giovanni Bonacina and the tradition of the past
1951 • Vittorio Bonacina and the revolution in design with Franco Albini
1980 • Mario Bonacina and the design for the future

 

Sometimes a chair is just a chair; but sometimes it’s much more.

Vittorio Bonacina’s furniture is the expression of this distinction.