If luxury has predominated for years in furniture construction and materials, today we are seeing a trend towards a frugal use of resources that represents the birth of a new style, ‘pauperism’, not the only progeny of the crisis we continue to face, and sire of a new ethos of chaste, sometimes severe product design, moderate in the adoption of figurative referents.
Design become elementary and structure simple in the work of Daniele Bortotto and Giorgia Zanellato, two young veterans of the SaloneSatellite who present La Serenissima for Moroso, a seating collection inspired by the high waters of Venice that echoes the raised gangways used to combat flooding, upholstered with moiré fabrics made by Rubelli.
A ‘dietary regimen’ that design seems to have imposed on itself, focusing on the functional and translating into lightweight, exposed frames and thinner padding, as in the Casablanca sofa by Baldessari&Baldessari for Adele C or Zinta by Lievore Altherr Molina for Arper, Bench System by Francesco Rota for Lapalma, and Sabal by Matteo Nunziati for Coro.
Minimalism, eternal by definition, finds new vitality in the wake of this ‘pauperist’ trend. One need only look at the Anin stool by the young Spaniard David Lopez Quinoces for Living or the Orfeo bed by Ferruccio Laviani for Lema. There’s space as well for ‘Alpine design’, furniture that a shepherd might place in his hut, conjugated in solid wood dowels with exposed joints, or in milking stools upholstered in fabric or hide paired with soft sofas like Popit by Analogia Project for Frag, or the Nepal armchair covered in curly Mongolian sheepskin by Paola Navone for Baxter, or the Peg endtables by Nendo for Cappellini.
A rediscovered simplicity that nevertheless leaves room for dreaming, as Piero Fornasetti taught us. Likewise Ugo La Pietra, renowned confabulator, has designed for the small Piemontese company Barel a bed and mirror in wrought iron that resides somewhere between ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘The Addams Family’; Front presents Loop Mirror from Porro; London designers Fredrikson Stallard, discovered by Enrico Astori for Driade, seem inspired instead by ‘The Lord of the Rings‘ with the glass top of their Sereno endtable resting on giant nuggets of gold; Jaime Hayon proposes wall-mounted gold masks for Bosa; Patrizia Pozzi, daisy tables for Serralunga; Jake Phipps, a bird cage lamp with a golden bird, Tweetie, for Casamania; Philippe Starck, the Aunts&Uncles collection for Kartell; Fernando & Humberto Campana, the Bastardo sofa for Edra.
The desire for distraction and uninhibited spatio-temporal incursions for a design that becomes narrative, as in Gabriele & Oscar Buratti‘s Akim for Gallotti&Radice, a set of tables with bases in colored ‘diamonds’; Archer Humphryes with the After Adam from Fratelli Boffi; Laudani&Romanelli for Valsecchi 1918 with the overlapping volumes of wood of the endtable Fairy Tales.
The phenomenon of re-editions continues, bringing back masterpieces of the past to the spotlight, or inspiring new production. But material the real star of 2014. Kartell celebrates transparency through its last 15 extraordinary years, but there is also a predilection for dense materials like ceramic, or porous ones like cork and concrete. In the Brushstroke collection by Nendo for Glas, the glass slab is ground to the point of obtaining a stone-like effect.
Chromatic trends are topped by copper, in shades of pink and violet (Radiant Orchid, Pantone 18-3224, is the color 2014), or oxidized in colors ranging from petroleum green to the various tones of mold, fungus and mud.
Technique on display to emphasize the specificity of each object, which can become vibrations generated by the dense repetition of structures in wire, or obsessive stitches embroidered onto cushions, chairs and carpets, as in the Canevas collection by Charlotte Lancelot for Gan Spaces, but also a formal tension towards a style that recalls self-production, a cultural phenomenon of central importance and the theme of the SaloneSatellite for the second year running, conditioning the look of the objects of the production chain, like the Numero 3 lamp by Patrizia Bertolini for Horm.
Intimist design for the Mad Chair by Marcel Wanders for Poliform and the Manda chair by Patrick Jouin for Gruppo Industriale Busnelli, which seem to respond to the desire for refuge.
