Once again DAMN° magazine and Mosca Partners held court at Palazzo Litta a fascinating example of late Lombardy Baroque and early Rococo architecture in the city centre.

Inside the Palazzo, Mosca Partners and DAMN° assembled a selection of architects, designers, and corporate partners, to express themselves under the theme : A Matter of Perception: Tradition and Technology, which is all about the origin of concepts; how materials affect and define an object or an idea, with the purpose of looking at things in everyday life in a different way.

During Milan Design Week 2016 in April, 32,000 people came to see the exhibits and attend the parties, engage in professional meetings and informal encounters, become amazed by novelties and surprises, and discover design and crafts

Architect Diébédo Francis Kéré, originally from Burkina Faso and founder of Kéré Architecture with headquarters in Berlin, was invited to transform the inner courtyard into a neo-African village.

The initiative with Kéré was built into Damn magazine’s the more general framework “A Matter of Perception“, a series of events and talks

Architect Diébédo Francis Kéré

The layout of the installation is based on the dynamics of social and spatial interaction of a typical African village – and generates organic shapes and elements by using natural materials best proposed by the collaboration between Casone and Mutti Francesco.

The two circular pavilions are custodians of a Pietra Forte Fiorentina Stone floor cut with numerical control machinery and both the main pavilion, designed to welcome visitors for conferences, meetings and aperitifs, and the smaller, more intimate one, for interviews, are entirely made of Casone stone.

Solidity and lightness in a primitive and natural building system that innovates in its alternation of horizontal and vertical elements, defined by an African material weave.

Architect Kéré surrounded the Courtyard Pavilion at Palazzo Litta with erba palustre: a wild plant that grows spontaneously alongside Italian rivers.

This material is commonly used for furniture, but thanks to Italian landscape design company EuroAmbiente’s collaboration with the architect, it has taken on a whole new shape: playful bundles of the plant cover Palazzo Litta’s courtyard, creating an abstract elaboration of an African landscape.

talk with De Lucchi & Branzi about CAOS, their exhibit at Palazzo Litta

Great design ladies on stage Rosanna Orlandi , Carlotta de Bevilacqua , Rossella Bisazza and Fiorella Villa

DAMNº & Mosca Partners are filling Palazzo Litta and its courtyard with new works by acclaimed designers like- Jasper Morrison, Formafantasma, Jan Kath, Alberto Meda, Love Hultèn, Daniel Rybakken, Lanzavecchia + Wai, Anton Alvarez, Andrea Branzi & Michele De Lucchi, Maarten Baas, Muller van Severen, and many others, as well as with contributions by students from two major European design schools (ECAL and Politecnico di Milano).

On top of that – and curated by DAMNº – is the exhibition Belgian Matters, with works by 13 Belgian designers

Inside the palazzo proper, on display will be works by Anton Alvarez, Andrea Branzi, Michele De Lucchi, Formafantasma, Jan Kath, Alberto Meda and many others, too.

Presenters in 2016 were —

Diébédo Francis Kéré / Anton Alvarez / Maarten Baas / Belgium is Design / Mattia Biagi / Andrea Branzi – Michele De Lucchi – Francesca Balena Arista: Politecnico di Milano / Enrico Corelli /Leo Di Caprio / ECAL / Formafantasma / Koichi Futatsumata / Garcia Cumini / hettler.tüllmann / Jan Kath / Lanzavecchia + Wai / Alberto Meda / mist-o / Jasper Morrison / muller van severen / Francisco Gomes Paz / Danilo Premoli / Filippo Protasoni – Claudio Larcher / Francesca Raccolti – Daniele Lotti / Matteo Ragni / Robbrecht & Daem / Daniel Rybakken / Gino Sarfatti / Vittoriano Viganò