Milan Furniture Fair, April 2009
Over the past decade or so the Milan Furniture Fair, which ran from 22-27 April, has become a haven for design superstars, big parties and slick marketers. In 2009 the obvious question was how it would respond to the global recession? Well it’s hanging in there pretty convincingly. While noticeably more muted – there were fewer lavish shindigs and some of the larger manufacturers had pared their stands back – there was still a huge amount to see. Intriguingly too, an emphasis on the handmade was much in evidence. The following is a necessarily brief trot through an extremely busy week.
Traditionally my first evening in Milan has kicked off with an opening at the Corian showroom and 2009 was no exception. Since it started working with the late, great Ettore Sottsass in 2001, the material manufacturer has been employing high profile designers and architects to create sometimes intriguing and occasionally indulgent installations from their product. This year’s was by Amanda Levete and it was rather good. Believe it or not, this is a sink.
The beginning of day two now and this is the newish Fiera designed by architect Massimiliano Fuksas on the outskirts of the city. Nice isn’t it? Just think with a bit more vision ExCel could have looked like this.
Inside the fair now and this is the Kartell stand. The point of Milan is to get yourself noticed and the Italian company decided to go kitsch this year (quite possibly because it didn’t have much in the way of new product to show). Rather weirdly they weren’t too keen on people taking photographs and I shot this one before a big Italian man came over and told me to stop.
There was much talk at this year’s fair of utility and austerity. Edra obviously wasn’t listening. The sofa is by the Campana brothers.
Moroso decided to ignore the prevailing wisdom too. Former Crafts cover stars Front came up with a series of startling, witty sofas for them.
A cow on the Regent Lighting stand.
This is a chair for Meritalia by Gaetano Pecse. “I have always loved animals, even the humbler ones. And I have always admired them, particularly the gentler, non-violent ones,” he explains… which is nice.
It’s Thursday now and I hit the fringe events that since 2001 has been dominated by Zona Tortona. Back then it felt like the end of the earth and taxi drivers would give you a strange look when you asked to be taken there. Now, however, there are loads of young people just hanging out.
Oh blimey. Sorry my digital camera is broken so I was using my six-year-old son’s toy version. These are slightly out of focus vessels courtesy of Piet Boon Zone.
Now I liked the IKEA installation. It included three wall hangings by Dutch designer Hella Jongerius made with women working in Indian workshops that were set up by IKEA and UNICEF a few years ago. Sections of the animal images – apparently inspired by Swedish fairytales – are industrially stitched but much is embroidered by hand. The ultimate idea is that the designer and manufacturer teach their workers the necessary techniques to start their own businesses. There are those that would argue that this is akin to supermarkets destroying the corner shop before setting up Metro versions. However, I’m of the opinion that the horse bolted years ago and it’s good to see a major corporation investing in the handmade.
Swarovski’s installation has been one of the talking points of recent years. It took a slightly smaller space and handed the whole thing over to designer Arik Levy. The result was… well a wee bit pretentious if I’m being honest.
The highlight of the fair was undoubtedly Craft Punk. Curated by Design Miami in the 750 sq m Spazio FENDI, a group of emerging designers, including Simon Hasan, Peter Marigold and Raw Edges, were asked to create pieces using discarded materials from the FENDI production process during daily four hour performances. It proved beyond reasonable doubt that craft can be seriously sexy. This is Nacho Carbonell.
Peter Marigold meets a punter.
Simon Hasan hard at work.
And finally Kwangho Lee doing his thing.
For more on Milan check out the July/August edition of Crafts.
