02/07/2013

Visiting Franco Albini

The building stands in the district called centro storico, the old center of Milan. As we arrive on spot ten minutes before the appointment, we still have some time to appreciate the surrounding buildings from the last century. Ringing the bell with the name Albini on it, a female voice tells us to continue to the corridor, straight, until the door with the big windows and then take right. In this exact place, since 1970, Franco Albini, one of the most important architects and designers of Italian rationalism had established his studio.

The studio is kept as it used to be, and now since few months it has been open for the public audience to experience the atmosphere and learn about the working methods used by this brilliant architect. We are kindly welcomed by his son Marco Albini and granddaughter Paola Albini, who are guiding the visit themselves. While introducing the ideas and the historical facts, their talk imperceptibly melts with their personal stories, creating a warm atmosphere.

Trying to better understand each piece of design or architecture, it’s inevitable to discover the creative process as well. Especially in the work of Albini, who continued to improve his design objects according to the needs in the context of their times: the very idea of rationalism itself. For example, if a coffee table or a lamp can stand on three legs, why put a fourth one? “To question each little detail”, tells the architect’s son Marco Albini, “was my father’s working method – a belief that the good result is achieved only after a long and patient work.”

After exiting the place we feel like leaving behind a space where all the furniture, objects, tables and chairs are almost like levitating. One of the main approach of the work of Franco Albini was indeed to give every piece as much lightness as possible, leaving only the essential, the soul of each object. A good example is a famous bookshelf created for his home, in which he lets the books to almost float in the air and become more important than the design object itself.

Fondazione Franco Albini is open on weekdays, by appointment.

Agota Lukytė 
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02/07/2013

What’s For Breakfast?

Design has the incredible ability to inquire nearly any aspect of human life. From communications to transportation, from health to sports, from housing to everyday life and its habits. Yet, when it is shown to the public in museums and galleries it somehow remains abstract and disconnected from its daily functions. A show on display in Tbilisi, Georgia, eloquently integrates design and its material artefacts in a broader narrative about our everyday life, our national identities and the symbolic meaning each object carries.


Titled “What’s for breakfast?”, this show intends to inquire into eastern-European habits and way of life through the lens of design. The idea that guided the creation of this exhibition was to create a global discussion about the ways of life in different countries by merging design objects with their precise function. Hence, the question that forms the title has also guided the creation of different settings: each table represents a country through a meticulous display of its morning habits. “What’s for breakfast?”, presents a starting point from which the representatives of each country involved (namely Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Georgia), responded with a selection of objects, materials, settings, dishes and, ultimately, habits, that subtly speak about their national identities, qualities, affinities and preferences.


From the severe Austrian breakfast to the open Georgian feast, each table not only pinpoints the different customs, but also demonstrates how design can effectively penetrate each aspect of our lives, form the most simple and trivial ones, like a breakfast, to complex and articulate issues of national identity and shared culture.

Curated by Anna Pietrzyk-Simone, Kasia Jeżowska, and Miśka Miller-Lovegrove, “What’s for breakfast?” is on display until the 3rd of July at Writers’ House of Georgia in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Rujana Rebernjak 
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01/07/2013

Don’t Worry, Let Your Imagination Run Wild

You may think you already know everything about the emblematic work entitled Fountain by the versatile genius Marcel Duchamp (Blainville-Crevon, 1887 – Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1968), who is considered to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century. Many of you may have studied the artistic path of this extraordinary painter, sculptor, writer and chess player, whose works had and still have an extraordinary impact on the art world. But our play of the weekend was to try to distance ourselves from the common knowledge, listening what a group of neophytes would say about this controversial work. Our “guinea pigs” were children from 3 to 5 years old, but they could as well be 90 to 100, because it’s never too soon, or too late to enjoy art.

Alessia: “Duchamp was a joker, maybe he produces washbowls because he wasn’t able to draw.”

Emma Giulia: “I think this work is for males only. Males always design males’ things.”

Alice: “What’s this big bowl for? Does it serve to wash feet? Is the tube in the front supposed to be connected to anything?”

Tommaso: “No, it isn’t Alice. This is a potty-chair for grown children. It must be comfortable. You can look around while pissing.”

Rodrigo: “Is Mr. Mutt R the name of the owner of this artwork? Yes, because it is an artwork right? It doesn’t seem to me, but it looks like a thing that is worth collecting and keeping at home. I’ve seen so many strange things, that if Mr. Mutt wants to treasure it, I agree.”

Lorenzo: “It is a musical instrument, a strange hydro… How do you say it? Hydrophone? (Ed. Note) Yes, that one. When the drops fall down one after the other they make a concert.”

Emma: “To my mind, it looks like a cradle for a small dog, which rolls into a ball and dreams about a flying meatball.”

Matteo: “I think that it’s a strange armchair. My grandma would say “one invents basically everything”. Anyway, I like it! There is the artist’s signature too. Is he famous?”

Giovanni: ”Sometimes artists are funny! Guys, this is a mini toilet bowl, how can it be considered as an artwork? Our teacher says that we should go beyond and use imagination, so I’m trying to understand how we can turn a toilet bowl into an artwork. I need to think about it, It’s not so easy. I’ll let you know my point tomorrow, ok?”

Michelangelo: “I think that it’s something to produce an echo, like a machine to produce words through the tube”.

Margherita: “I don’t like this work, it looks like a cradle, but it’s white, maybe I would paint it.”

Federico: “How can you pee into an artwork? For sure someone would yell at you!”

Monica Lombardi – Many thanks to Emanuela Torri for her precious support 
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