Salone del Mobile 2014. From luxury to simplicity.
- ‘pauperist’ trend
Minimalism finds new vitality in the wake of the a new trend at the Salone del Mobile Milano 2014 – the ‘pauperist’ trend. A frugal use of resources in furniture, severe product design, moderate in the adoption of figurative referents gave birth of the new ‘pauperism’ style.
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.
- re-editions
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
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.
- a rediscovered simplicity
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 table 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.
- narrative design
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.
- ‘Where Architects Live’ – The exhibition/event of the Salone 2014 suggests new ways of designing domestic spaces at every latitude.
‘Where Architects Live’ is the featured exhibition/event of the Salone del Mobile 2014, in Pavilion 9: eight major architects open the doors of their private homes to reflect on the trends of domestic habitation. Where to the people who change the faces of our cities, who plot new horizons, who transform the contemporary landscape feel at home?
