The annual Milan Furniture Fair is like a big wheel of Parmigiano – you can slice it any way you like, but the simplest thing is to cut straight through. This year it was clearly bisected, right down the middle.
On the one hand, light ephemeral gestures, furniture reduced to the merest trace in space, a will to disappear. This mood was epitomised by Japanese design studio nendo’s elegantly absent Invisible Outlines installation at the Jil Sander showroom, a telling choice since the German fashion brand is renowned for its minimal touch. Blindingly white tables melted into bowls, translucent Jellyfish vases gently quivered, wired outlines framed negative space. Not exactly wares for the home.
On the other hand, there was a pleasant heavy-handedness, a weightiness that implied a certain gravitas. In editing this Best of Milan 2017 selection, I’ve erred on the side of heft. This because Australian homes, oriented as they often are towards airy exteriors, benefit from bold interiors. In slicing the cheese this way, an unexpected undercurrent of 1940s rigour emerges. The magic, of course, is in the mix.
Soft Props sofa
by Konstantin Grcic for Cassina
An evolution of last year’s Props – architectural steel shapes with no fixed function – this year Grcic developed a graphic sofa system called Soft Props. Inspired by the handrails of the Milanese metro, designed by Bob Noorda and Franco Albini in the early 1960s and considered a perfect example of Italian Rationalism, the metal tubes of the Soft Props are made of interchangeable parts, allowing the user to rearrange the configuration at will. “I started with some classics from the Cassina catalogue in mind and ended up stripping them all back to bare or exposed structures,” says Grcic. Le Corbusier’s LC3 club chair comes to mind. Apparently rigid, the Soft Props is in reality modular, a spongy piece of soft furnishing loosely cradled in a solid frame. Timeless.
Ombré chair and Tall Horizon screen
by Germans Ermics for Rossana Orlandi
In homage to Shiro Kuramata’s iconic Glass Chair of 1976, Amsterdam-based designer Ermics unveiled his Ombré chair and Horizon screen, alluring compositions of translucency produced by printing coloured ink onto a transparent film which is then sandwiched between two panes of glass. Technically excellent, the series is seductive in its play upon absence and presence, solid and yet hard to grasp. The sculptural pieces change appearance as light shifts, or as people move around them. Beyond creating highly collectible furniture, the designer says his aim is “to shape colour”. It’s perhaps that bigger vision that imbues the work with significance beyond its own physicality.
Quindici lounge chair
by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for Mattiazzi
Mattiazzi is known for its finely crafted timber seating, rigorous in line although sometimes quite hard on the behind. Increasingly, it is developing upholstered offerings, of which the Bouroullecs’ Quindici lounge chair is an excellent example.
Slung between two chunky T-shaped arm rests, the slender ash seat itself is a suite of three solid planes working together to create perfect support. Upholstered in a choice of lush Kvadrat fabrics, the Quindici is a gentle giant of a thing – industrially tough, but offset by a good dose of luxe.
Verticale suspension lights
by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for Flos
The Bouroullec brothers’ Verticale is a set of long, thin glass columns encased within fine exoskeletons constructed from anodised aluminium. When illuminated, the metal frames are abstracted by the light source, appearing to merge into a singular column of light.
Modular along the vertical, the lights can be adjusted for height. As a single column they’re totemic, clustered they become talismanic. Great for a stunning lobby statement.
Escape furniture
by Fernando Mastrangelo for Rossana Orlandi
Brooklyn artist and designer Mastrangelo’s Escape series of tables, storage and seating are composed of a mix of silica, hand-dyed sand and powdered glass which, once dry, gives the impression of striated, solid rock. In soft pastel tones of pink, blue and inky black, they are reminiscent of Georgia O’Keeffe’s gentle New Mexico landscape paintings.
Monolithic in their unapologetic heft, they suggest an earnestness underscored by the raw, granular aspect of the touch. If a rock bench feels too harsh, it can always be softened by some of those zigzag knit cushions from Missoni Home.
Rotazioni carpets
by Patricia Urquiola for CC-Tapis
Following the success of last year’s geometric Visioni carpets, Urquiola has devised a new series of tapestries, titled Rotazioni. Softening the right angles with sensuous curves, the superposition of the cylinder motif creates an optical dynamism, the hand-woven wool enhancing the impression of depth.
The nuanced palette is a de facto guide to this year’s trend colours: soft rusts, faded aubergines and pale, egg-shell blues, colours so subdued as to qualify as hues. So beautiful, you’ll want to hang these carpets on the wall.
Floor Composition
by Michael Anastassiades for Flos
London-based Anastassiades is one of the most influential lighting designers working today. So widely imitated, in fact, that he’s released a lamp called Copycat. But it’s his new Table Composition and Floor Composition that are of real interest. Not only do they establish an entirely new typology – the table/light – they do it with all the judicious disequilibrium of a Brâncusi.
The asymmetry of the uprights, the ballast of the sphere anchoring the structure echoed in the flattened surface disc is a virtuoso balancing act. It has a self-referential quality that keeps the eye constantly on the move, trying to take it all in. In just the right shade of rusty red powder-coated aluminium, it has “trend alert” written all over it.
Visiera sofa
by Cristina Celestino for Nilufar
Nina Yashar’s Nilufar Depot is the premium Milanese dealership in rare 20th-century design. Increasingly, she is also commissioning new work in limited editions by contemporary designers, pieces that segue seamlessly with her historical aesthetic, savvily updated for today.
Celestino’s slinky Visiera sofa evokes Hollywood glamour of yore, its rich velvet saddle sitting low to the ground (perfect for come-hither reclining), its bulbous back attached by a broad band of brushed and varnished brass. Finished with two oversized brass studs, it’s like a perfectly formed fashion accessory for the home. Precious.
Chignon armchair
by Lucidi Pevere for Gebrüder Thonet Vienna
Thonet is renowned firstly for its innovations in Bentwood bistro chairs, secondly for its skills in tubular steel, most famously in the hands of Marcel Breuer and Mies van der Rohe. Nowhere in the Austrian company’s catalogue does soft upholstery feature. This fact alone makes the Chignon stand out. Company history aside, the low seat is charming in its pert self-assurance, just slightly quirky.
The way the steam-bent, lacquered frame (note the rust red, on trend) supports the plump seat cushion then wraps around the backrest, squeezing it like a bon-bon, makes me smile. Word on the street is that the boudoir is set to make a comeback, even as a boydoir. When it does, the Chignon will be the perfect seat for hours spent brooding.
Jellyfish vases
by Oki Sato for nendo
Over recent years the designs of Sato and his Tokyo-based nendo studio have been getting lighter and lighter, ethereal to the point where this year they all but dissolve. His series of 30 different Jellyfish vases are pulled back from the brink by two factors: their ghostly blue tint and their gentle fluidity.
Made from ultra-thin transparent silicon that has been dyed twice to create a nuanced dégradé, their surface perimeters are so fine that they gently undulate. To underscore the effect, nendo showed them in a tank of water alongside flowers and fish. Don’t try this at home.
