M&C 13 Download

M&C issue 13 – 2019 13 Happy Birthday, UniFor! Born in 1969, this lady with a vocation for architecture is celebrating her first 50 years with the story of a family – the truest portrait of the Italian design industry. A book, an installation, an exciting future. It all began, as with many industrial design traditions, in Brianza, the heart of Italy’s furniture district. This was a time when design culture was ferrying craftsmanship over to industry, all in the service of aesthetics and practicality. UniFor developed from the story of a family into a whole new chapter in Italian history. Originally, it was an idea of a community cherished by its founding fathers, brothers, cousins, relations and friends, all of whom shared the same vision and talent. But it was also testament to exceptional far-sightedness, skills, competence and creativity. Very soon, UniFor established itself as synonymous with elegance, reliability and innovation – design for life, if you will, rather than just a design industry. And so, this year sees Molteni&C open three new flagship stores, all designed by Vincent Van Duysen, in cities that never fail to amaze: New York, London and Tokyo. This publication chronicles new and unexpected encounters, new worldwide projects and new designers from every continent. It also reviews a major Gio Ponti exhibitionat at the Paris MAD. Living is not just a question of style, or, as the great Gio himself said: “Architecture is an interpretation of life”. Chapeau les artistes! moltenigroup.com #MolteniGroup #MDW19 #UniFor50 by Ron Gilad Unifor 50th Anniversary Installation 9 – 14 April 2019 Palazzo di Brera via Brera 28 Milano Monday – Saturday 10.00am – 21.00pm Sunday 10.00am – 19.00pm Tuesday 9 April Cocktail Party 18.00 – 22.00 by Francesca Molteni It was 1968, the year of great and definitive events that left their mark on consciences, cultures, populations, Art, culture and industry come together at Palazzo certain exemplary moments, from UniFor’s collaborations A Commitment Una vocazione di Brera for UniFor’s 50th anniversary. To look back with leading designers and architects such as Michele lifestyles, and consumer habits. That year, the name of which became the symbol of an era, was many to Architecture per l’architettura at five fundamental decades in the history of Italian De Lucchi, Foster + Partners, Jean Nouvel, Renzo Piano, things, including the ethics and aesthetics of 2001: A Space Odyssey, a cult film on the identity of man and Fulvio Irace the role of knowledge, information access, and technology. In the midst of that cultural ferment, UniFor design, the Molteni Group has chosen a space Aldo Rossi, and Álvaro Siza, to its communication was ready and prepared to welcome the internationality and centrality of design as the foundation of in the seventeenth-century Palazzo in via Brera in strategy, with Pierluigi Cerri’s graphics acting as a tool development, in order to transform the visions of architects into public and private spaces, then objects, Milan, the headquarters of key institutions for the city: for unifying the company’s message through its and finally, icons. The power of coincidences. From our workshop/observatory, we have accompanied the the Accademia di Belle Arti, Pinacoteca di Brera coordination of graphic identity and display systems. evolution of work throughout the world. We have dialogued with large corporations, with the contractors and Biblioteca Braidense. The display is curated Cerri’s showrooms and furniture fair stands exemplify, who built the contemporary landscape – the metropolises and the manufacturing complexes that have by Fulvio Irace, and features a multimedia installation in the three-dimensionality of the spaces, the concepts marked the economic history of the second half of the twentieth century – and with the architects, those by Ron Gilad. Accompanying the exhibition is the book of order, measure, functional elegance and innovation. creators of the shapes and spaces that define functions and transmit meanings. Una vocazione per l’architettura, published by Skira To convey UniFor’s corporate values, and its legacy We have experienced, in these fifty years, the time of organized work and the time of destructured work with graphic design by Pierluigi Cerri. This draws in the history of design, Ron Gilad has built his tribute that expands into the personal sphere. We have witnessed the time of rigorous spatial layouts and the on UniFor’s hitherto unpublished archive to describe to UniFor’s 50th anniversary around the space curated time in which space defines new worlds for other, more articulated, affiliations. Museums, theaters, its specific vision: the design of an interior landscape by Fulvio Irace, and in relation to the venue that is hosting libraries, and temporary installations have represented, with their demanding levels of technical, that turns the ideas and requirements of contemporary the multimedia installation, with its cultural and social mechanical, and symbolic innovation, challenging contexts in which to invest the district’s capital of clients and architects into reality. UniFor grew centrality to the life of Milan. The accompanying book intellectual and artisanal skills. We have embraced the future within the walls designed for us by Angelo out of a family story. It was origianlly an idea of a has been incorporated into the installation in the form of Mangiarotti, and beyond those walls we have shared it with the intelligent supply chain that has permitted community, but it was also testament to the human a gigantic sculpture in the centre of the Cortile d’Onore, UniFor to develop not so much products but solutions. This supply chain is emblematic of “Made in Italy,” capital of technical experts, architects, designers, opposite a statue of Napoleon. The sculpture is a bronze an approach based on the formal and informal know-how that has made the Brianza district a paradigm of graphic designers, photographers, and exceptionally cast based on a model by Antonio Canova, with a video historical and contemporary intellectual capital. far-sighted, specialized, skilled, competent and animation that reproduces the book’s pages, which are UniFor with its networks, has been a world open to the world: for some it was a company, and for others, creative craftspeople. All have enabled the company turned by Josephine Bonaparte. The Last Supper, an a factory, an incubator of endless experiments that have translated the momentum of ideas and the to establish itself as a synonym for elegance, reliability installation in the Sala Napoleonica, presents a number intelligence of function into efficient, beautiful, ergonomic, and distinctive forms. Everything took place in and innovation in the definition of the Bürolandschaft of UniFor products, including the DCA system by a subtle and smart chemistry of trust, vision and organization, starting from a cultured, meticulous, and in the second machine age. The story began in the David Chipperfield and the Elements 03 table by Foster passionate business community that is part of an industrial group made up of expertise, experience and 1970s in Turate, where Angelo Mangiarotti designed + Partners. They are animated by a live performance reputation. Before the projects and before production, the challenge has consisted in understanding how the first nucleus of the headquarters and the production by drama students from the Accademia di Brera inspired to decipher the spirit of the times in order to interpret needs and desires, while at the same time units, which gradually expanded with the growing by Leonardo’s celebrated fresco. Touchdown, the third practicing virtuous environmental, economic, and social sustainability policies. We can never be thankful fortunes of the company. It was a model factory, where project forming the tribute, presents the new product enough for the commitment and dedication of all those who have assured exceptional engineering and production was kept in-house, allowing for an obsessive designed by Studio Klass in the Sala della Passione. production, rigorous and incisive communication, quality of service, and managerial solidity. These fifty attention to quality. In its classic simplicity, the Here, a projection of a cartoon shows its potential, years represent the value of a perspective to be lived and a story to be told. Thank you. headquarters became a living manifesto for UniFor’s and is accompanied by a sound environment created by corporate spirit. The following decades were to be the students of the Accademia di Brera’s masters degree Piero and Carlo Molteni decisive: major overseas projects were accompanied in sound design. “I find many similarities in relating by collaborations with great names in architecture. the technical skills, engineering capacity and the refined The book describes UniFor’s key features, highlighting craftsmanship of an industrial company such as UniFor the absolute singularity of its working method. with the intellectual and creative potential of an artist #UniFor50 It reconstructs the company’s identity by examining or a performer,” says Ron Gilad. “Passion is the key”. 2 3 M&C 13 A commitment to architecture by Fulvio Irace Concentrating on winning the race, the runner looks straight ahead: they care only about the finish line, not the starting point. The reporter has a different point of view. Sitting in the stands, they give an account of the event and then, at the end of the race, they comment on the performance, reconstructing the wait, the sprint, the speed, and the duration. Like a runner, a captain of industry rarely thinks about the past, except perhaps as a reference to do better in the future. At the beginning, their entrepreneurial story is always simultaneous – a continuous obstacle course, interspersed with technical pauses and training sessions. What counts is the quality of new ideas, their ability to break records. Thus they always imagine themself in motion, as if stopping to remember things would only be a waste of time, or perhaps even an act of reprehensible vanity.

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