If you’re not curious, forget it
Achille Castiglioni
Between industrial archeology spaces like The Terminal Stores building in Manhattan, the new district of creativity in Brooklyn – Industry City – and the sophisticated design stores on Madison Avenue and in the heart of Soho, the culture of design invades New York, in a dimension of the sublime that enchants and amazes. The magnificence of Italian style and its poetics narrated by historical design brands dialogues with the vision of international brands, in an intersection of styles, shapes, ideas and innovation. Between the colorful art imagined by Paola Lenti, the exclusive editions of Marc Newson for Cappellini and Frank Lloyd Wright for Cassina, the iconic lamps created by Achille Castiglioni for Flos, the sculptural design of Piero Lissoni for B & B Italia, the experimental research of Artemide, Moroso, Luceplan, the collections of Foscarini‘s author … In the fascination of a sophisticated beauty experience.
Artemide
Brand symbol of Italian lighting design, always focused on experimentation, its timeless icons interact with the masterpieces imagined by the most important international designers. Emblem of continuous research into innovation, the Alphabet of Light line created by BIG materializes the letters of the alphabet, transforming them into luminous language. Study on the dynamic interaction of experience, details, materials, form and light that Neri & Hu is developing with Artemide, nh1217 is instead a versatile lamp that can take various configurations thanks to a glass sphere that runs along a brass ring. Perfect combination of tradition, avant-garde and sustainability. (46 Greene St – www.artemide.com)
B&B Italia
The historic B&B Italia brand celebrates the uniqueness and beauty made in Italy, which in the Madison Avenue flagship store, presents the new collections: B&B Atoll, a seating system designed by Antonio Citterio, Paolo Piva’s Alanda ’18 table, and the day bed Eda-Mame by Piero Lissoni. “It’s like a surface, a model of” Möbius.” Eda-Mame is strangely full of curves, welcomes you and, if you want, also allows you to drink an aperitif, as if it were a padded table,” says Piero Lissoni. Inspiration? The shape of the soy bean typical of oriental cuisine transliterated into a piece of furniture, with a sculptural design. (135 Madison Avenue – www.bebitalia.com)
Cappellini
Iconic and exquisite simplicity, the creations of one of the most authoritative Italian brands put on a timeless aesthetic signed by some of the most important designers. Among the novelties, the Gong Terrazzo coffee table by Giulio Cappellini in which the table top reproduces one of the Venetian symbols, the sowing called also Terrazzo, reinvented with a refined technological research. And for its 25th Anniversary the famous Felt by Marc Newson, created through a sinuous folding of a fiberglass sheet, is presented in a numbered edition signed by the designer, embellished with a leather covering and wrapped in 50’s deco colors. (152 Wooster Street – www.cappellini.it)
Cassina
The Cassina brand is the interpreter of Italian beauty, among the productions of historical masterpieces signed by Maestri as Wright, Rietveld, Pesce, Magistretti and new collection imagined by Urquiola (art director Cassina), Starck, Anastassiades. Like the Taliesin 1 armchair, a real wooden origami designed in 1949 by Frank Lloyd Wright for his home / studio in Arizona, produced today in 450 limited editions, in the amaranth colors, petrol green and blue. To be admired in the Cassina stores at 151 Wooster St. and 155 E 56 th. (www.cassina.com)
De Padova
The De Padova Soho space designed by Piero Lissoni was inaugurated in Greene St during the New York design night. The historic Italian brand acquired by Boffi in 2015 unveils its design destination conceived as a home where the De Padova icons fit perfectly with the Boffi and MA / U Studio creations. (56 Greene St., 3rd floor – www.depadova.com)
Flos
“If you’re not curious, forget it”, a famous aphorism by Achille Castiglioni and a motto of his design philosophy. The undisputed Master of Italian Design is today celebrated by Flos, on the occasion of the centenary of his birth, with the collaboration of the Achille Castiglioni Foundation. Produced by the Italian brand, lamps like Arco, Taccia, Toio, Gatto, Lampadina are just some of the designer’s masterpieces, characterized by provocation and ironic lightness. Among the novelties, two special re-editions that Flos has recovered from his historical archives: Ventosa and Nasa, small illuminating devices full of emotion, interpretation of the most poetic aspects of light, movement and pleasure. (152 Greene St. – www.flos.com)
Foscarini
An author’s collection born from the collaboration between Foscarini and James Wines / SITE: ‘The Light Bulb Series’, protagonist of the “Reverse Room” installation, looks like a slanted and upside down “black box” in which the perception of the space. A collection and a composition created with some carefully selected pieces, limited edition and numbered, reflection on the light bulb as an archetype. “These are explorations that belong to the codified language of Wines” explains the President of Foscarini Carlo Urbinati. “Manumissions, transformations, ruins, mergers in which we as Foscarini reflect. Because in Wines’ restlessness we cannot help but regain that tension towards the experimentation that animates us from the beginning “… (20 Greene St – www.foscarini.com)
Luceplan
A design philosophy expressed by attention to details, to the craft vision, and to the experimental research in lighting characterizes Luceplan and its new collections. Amisol, designed by Daniel Rybakken, is a suspension lamp suitable for both residences and contract projects, in which the light reflected or diffused by the circular structure becomes a theatrical and poetic element. Winner of the prestigious “Best of the Best” Red Dot Award, the Mesh 55 ceiling version by Francisco Gomez Paz is immersed in a seemingly transparent body with a strong aesthetic impact. A network of flexible cables in which light becomes the protagonist, creating refined and suggestive atmospheres. (14 Wooster St – www.luceplan.com)
Molteni Group
Signed by designer Vincent Van Duysen, the new Flagship Store of Molteni Group – among the best-known brands of Italian design – inaugurates its NoMad Design District, on Madison Avenue, its home dedicated to excellence. A place to admire the beauty made in Italy and its timeless symbols, including the re-edition of furniture and furniture designed by Gio Ponti, considered one of the Masters of Italian architecture, promoter of Italian industrial design that considered a sophisticated, democratic solution: economic and modern. (160 Madison Avenue – www.molteni.it)
Moroso
Twenty years of collaboration celebrate the Italian brand Moroso and Patricia Urquiola, one of the most important names in contemporary design. An anniversary celebrated with a special creation: the Chamfer sofa, “a word that recurs in architecture where, when we join two curved lines, we join them in chamfer”, explains the designer, a bevel created with a 45 ° cut. A system that, through five different modules and a single link, gives life to a multiplicity of combinations: in a sequence of simple or articulated geometries, flexible and sumptuous. Designed by Sebastian Herkner, the lounge chair for outdoor Seku, a parrot in the Wolof language of West Africa, is integrated into the M’Afrique line by Moroso. A brightly colored, hand-woven seat in which the shell seems to float in the structure. In a sublime formal lightness. (146 Greene St. – www.moroso.com)
Paola Lenti
Shaped by Italian craftsmanship and exquisite creative harmony, the design of the Paola Lenti brand is a sophisticated balance between function, form and sustainability. Outdoor and indoor furnishings for yachts, luxury resorts and exclusive residences, transforming them into elegant and high-end locations. Like the new collection Elementi imagined with chromatic shades and unusual correspondences between technological materials and craftsmanship. (ddc Design Post – 181 Madison Ave – www.ddcnyc.com; www.paolalenti.it)
Poltrona Frau
“The proportions are not just harmony, they are the search for the relationship between fullness and emptiness, light and shadow, hidden and unveiled, ideal beauty and scars of time” says Michele De Lucchi, renowned architect and designer who conceived Marianne, the vases for Poltrona Frau each one unique work of design and art of blown glass. Accompanied by the Poltrona Frau innovations, including the refined coffee table / container basket Cestlavie by GamFratesi and the Xi by Neri & Hu line of lamps in blown glass and leather. (145 Wooster St – www.poltronafrau.com)
WantedDesign, the forge of creativity between new talent and international design
“I am excited to produce a project for a 40-meter building, up to now my biggest work” said French designer and artist Camille Walala describing the murals commissioned by WantedDesign – platform founded by Odile Hainaut and Claire Pijoulat – for the Design Week in New York and sponsored by Industry City: a gigantic six-story street art inspired by the Memphis Movement, the Ndebele tribe and the art master Victor Vasarely who permanently covers one of the walls of the new district of creativity Brooklyn: In Industry City as well as at Manhattan’s Terminal Stores Building WantedDesign presents the new trends in the project culture, a veritable creative kermis between international brands and emerging talents, in the fascination of the industrial archeology of the Terminal Stores Building in Manhattan during the NYCxDESIGN, Wanted Interiors creates a living space that refers to the Italian Modernism with products of companies such as Flos, Alpi, Mohawk Group and Cappellini. Within the framework of Industry City, on the other hand, among the various exhibitions, Couleur – part of Oui Design (initiative of Cultural Services of the French Embassy and its FACE partner Foundation) – narrates the vision of three emerging French – Julie Richoz, Ionna Vautrin, Pernelle Poyet – and the role of color in their work; all in a selection of pieces that reveals research and exploration in the chromatic universe in materials and textures. (WantedDesign – www.wanteddesignnyc.com)
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