The Vogue Living team witness the results of a cross-cultural design collaboration, enter an Italian home created using virtual reality and see what’s left over when Scholten & Baijings dismantle a MINI.
DAY 4: Thursday 19 April
Japan Creative: Simple Vision
Museo Minguzzi, Via Palermo 11
At Museo Minguzzi, an event space within a restored 17th century building, is an exhibition by Japan Creative, an organisation focused on identifying Japanese aesthetics and traditional skills and using them to create new products and communicate new ideas. The exhibition titled Simple Vision presents prototypes produced through collaborations established between international designers, including Jasper Morrison, Inga Sempé, Nacho Carbonell and Paul Cocksedge, and Japanese manufacturers and craftsman.
We were captivated by the beauty of JC 04, a glass light that uses magnets to float in mid air. It was produced by Tokyo-based artisan glass company Mihoya Glass in collaboration with Korean designer Yeongkyu Yoo.
Paul Cocksedge worked with Pioneer to create JC 03 simple-looking thin panel that emits light in different colours using organic electroluminescence (OEL). The technology, developed by Pioneer and typically used in their car stereos, is self-emitting, meaning that the ultra-thin panel needn’t be back-lit and has very low voltage requirements.
AD – La Casa Degli Italiani 1861-2011
Fiera Milano City, Padiglione 2 Ingresso Porta Scarampo
The history of Italian architecture and design over the last 150 years is the subject of a huge multimedia and interactive exhibition organised by Vogue Living’s sister magazine AD Italia (Architectural Digest Italy) and curated by that magazine’s editor Ettore Mocchetti.
The exhibition AD – La Casa Degli Italiani 1861-2011 (The Italian House from 1861 to 2011) conveys not only how Italian interiors and architecture have evolved, but how certain fundamental elements – a feeling for beauty, quality and a constant aspiration to modernity – have stayed the same.
More than 70 companies identified as having played a central role in the development of Italian interiors are participating in the exhibition. The objects they have lent in conjunction with videos and large-format photographs of interiors installed in a dynamic multimedia environment coalesce to provide a comprehensive and engaging survey of Italian design over the last 150 years.
The event also celebrated 30 years of Architectural Digest with all eight different editions of the monthly architecture, furnishing and design publication, including AD Spain, AD France, AD Mexico and recent addition AD India, taking part in the exhibition. Each magazine has created projections of objects and houses expressing the distinctive aesthetic and style of their country.
We were particularly taken by a series of six green rooms that gave the illusion that visitors were walking into the image of an Italian house as shown in the video, below, of Vogue Living editor David Clark entering one of the virtual realities.
Colour One by Scholten & Baijings for MINI
Interni Legacy, Cortili dell’Università degli Studi di Milano
Via Festa del Perdono 7
Wet weather couldn’t dampen the buzzy mood of a party in a transparent marquee at the University of Milan. Organised by MINI, the event celebrated Colour One, an installation created by the MINI design team in collaboration with Scholten & Baijings.
The project saw the Dutch designers dissect the MINI One model. The isolated components, located through a figurative process of peeling the car apart layer-by-layer, were then distilled to what the designers saw as their essence.
These objects were then decorated with Scholten & Baijings distinctive mix of texture, pattern and vibrant colour and presented as a series of sculptures within the Interni Legacy exhibition.
If you enjoyed this post make sure you check out our blog reports from day 1, day 2 and day 3 of Milan Design Week. You can see more images from on the ground on Facebook (facebook.com/vogueliving) and also follow the Vogue Living team live on Twitter (@vogueliving).
Producers: David Clark and Zoe Jeffrey
Photographer: Paul Barbera
Text: Madeleine Hinchy
