“The Milan Furniture Fair is a particularly important event for us this year, and we plan to approach it with an interesting project that is able to tell of the current identity of our company, and in which we have invested our energy, creativity and enthusiasm”.

With these words Marta Sala explains the reasons for the presentation of the historic Milanese brand at the leading event on the international calendar of design, the Milan Furniture Fair. Marta is daughter of founder Maria Teresa Tosi and niece of designer Luigi Caccia Dominioni, and, together with her sister Anna, she represents the new Azucena generation, who have been entrusted with the task of conveying the brand into the new millennium, keeping faith with the values and quality levels that have always distinguished its production.

“So we thought of Azucena Grand Hotel, the concept of a luxury hotel consisting entirely of Azucena proposals in the airy environments of our showroom at Via Passione 8 in Milan, which we inaugurated last year. It is an ambitious project, to which we have devoted ourselves full time over recent months and with the maximum commitment: the type of hotel concerned is in fact complex to develop, but particularly stimulating, because - like an apartment but in an even more marked way - it represents a micro-city with its routes, restrictions, public and private spaces.

This is a unique opportunity to deploy our technical ability, highlighting the architectural origin of our approach to the furnishing project and to our furniture itself, devised by the girls’ uncle, Luigi Caccia Dominioni as genuine urbanistic solutions, designed to arouse a sequence of emotions”.

The Azucena Grand Hotel project is in fact structured around a lively sequence of environments, including hall, reception, lounge, bar, conference room, dining room, bedroom and open-air relaxation area with the formal elegance and expressive rigour of Azucena, demonstrating the company’s ability to offer a complete supply, responding precisely to the requirements and desires of a designer - in this case the studio Vudafieri Saverino Partners, who have been called upon to give their interpretation - for stays with comfort and the best artistic design as the watchwords.

“We were keen to involve Vudafieri Saverino Partners, a design studio renowned for its refined contemporary sensibility, after working together on the Roof Garden Room project as part of the Good Design Hotel exhibition at the Sia Guest in Rimini last November: a hotel room where the indoor living environments flowed harmoniously into the outdoor spaces, with the presence of some items in production and others made-to-measure” - explains Marta Sala, joint deviser of the project.

“Azucena Grand Hotel represents the ideal continuation of this project, but this time expanded: the furnishings used are all ours, selected freely from an abundant catalogue that includes more than 150 pieces including lamps, upholstered items, beds, tables, furniture items, handles and furnishing accessories, perfect for the most sophisticated and complete contract supply settings.

The understanding with the designers has been perfect, but the experiment could be repeated in the future with others, thanks to our capacity to establish a direct dialogue with all players involved in project work, recognising their needs and responding precisely to their specific requirements. Working directly with the architect responsible for the interiors is the ideal way to bring out both the quality of the end result and the expressive capacity of the production, avoiding wastes of time and minimising mistakes and therefore costs.

Created to provide the furnishing to the architectural work of Luigi Caccia Dominioni, Ignazio Gardella and Corradi dell’Acqua - the three friends who founded Azucena in 1947 together with Franca and Maria Teresa Tosi - and drawing strength from 60 years of experience alongside architects, to propose design elements to suit every interior, today Azucena is one of the best partners for architects and design professionals, as it offers an ad hoc service and solutions made-to-measure, for major and minor projects alike. “Possessing” the production in its every phase allows an overall control of quality and the personalisation of pieces, such as in the choice of the natural woods, finishes or dimensions… where the original authenticity of the project is not altered”.

The layout design takes place, therefore, in a genuine dialogue between the traditional Milanese formal elegance, the artisan tradition of the great Italian craftsmen, the rigour and technical quality of the industrial contribution that are typical of the Azucena trademark and the culture and sensibility towards contemporary tendencies of the studio Vudafieri Saverino Partners, which is active all over the world in the areas of architecture, retail design, decoration and interior design.

“Composing the marvellous objects of Azucena in a personal vision, we have told of an imaginary place: the Azucena Grand Hotel, a fascinating architectural space, a circuit of representations and combinations that is intended to bring out, with a sense of admiration, the versatility and beauty of pure timeless design” - explain Tiziano Vudafieri and Claudio Saverino, the two partners who run the design studio.

The exhibition circuit begins in the open air, where, set in the midst of a spiral of plants and bushes, is an Azucena “classic”, the Nonaro line inspired by seats in an old-fashioned garden. Conceived as a genuine outdoor family composed of armchairs, 2- or 3-seater sofas, stools, chairs and tables, Nonaro is enhanced today by the new iron mesh lounger of the same name, hand-sewn with minimal-chic cushions, which reconciles the rationality and formal modernity of the mass-produced item and the preciousness of the hand-made object. While a 2-seater sofa, 4 armchairs and a pouf with metal grey iron structure and blueberry coloured fabric covering welcome visitors on arrival, immediately immersing them in an inviting relaxation area, the new lounger with metal grey iron structure and shell-coloured fabric covering is presented in isolation, stretched out on a platform of wooden boards immersed in the greenery and lit by a Zeta floor lamp for exteriors. This is an exhibition choice that highlights the perfect lines of this elegant object-sculpture, designed to live stand-alone, in sequence beside a swimming pool or in a solarium.

While the outdoor area creates a pleasant filter to leave the chaos of the city behind you, when you cross the threshold the pre-existing exhibition space is completely transformed by printed images on large-format fabrics covering the walls, projecting visitors directly into attractive settings.

Artistic snapshots alternating with architectural structures, home interiors and scenes from life, all carefully selected by the Vudafieri Saverino studio, reveal a cultural background and a sensibility that are shared by Azucena and the designers, acting as hyper-realistic backdrops against which the brand furnishings stand out, without forgetting irony, and emerge with all their scenic presence.

The entrance is characterised on the wall by the photograph of the interior of a Milanese house, an image that evokes the story of Azucena, which since the post-war period has known how to define a style of reference for Lombardy’s homes; it proposes the unusual comfort of Chinotto small armchairs, presented alternately with gloss white structure and white leather or gloss black structure and black leather, an “out-of-scale” item that is perfect for reduced spaces, capable of making less dramatic even the most austere environments. The scene is lit from above by four Imbuto lamps positioned with heads downwards, two in the version with chromed brass stem and burnished reflector and two with chrome stems and reflectors.

The image of an industrial space delimits the reception zone, which is composed of a Sciabola piccola desk with two offset black gloss lacquered tops and a Luis armchair, surrounded by a full-blown light forest created by placing on the floor Porcino piccolo and Porcino grande table lamps with polished chromed brass cylinder and frosted ¾ sphere blown glass globe, which like small mushrooms alternate with the essential geometry of the Imbuto floor lamp, presented with chrome stem and reflector.

The reference is clearly to the new, tenacious and avant-garde industrial world which found in Caccia Dominioni the main character in the post war period His modern project work was able to express the new way of experiencing home and the city.

The hall is long and personalised by the image of imposing architectural structures. In a first relaxation area, two Battibius armchairs, a continuous double metal grey iron band bent back onto itself to follow the profile of the seat that flexes to follow the movement of the body, with two comfortable cushions, accompany the Fasce Cromate 3-seater sofa, which with its visible polished chromed iron flat structure boasts the most famous back in design, the armchair of the same name and the new pouf, which is available in a striped fabric. Standing at the centre, on the Rotondo Girevole table with its three black lacquered half-moon tops, which can be rotated however you like to take on the desired shape, are elegant and practical chromed brass Marcel Grande ashtrays with hinged lids, for the more sophisticated smokers, while the Prisma lamp with fabric lampshade stands beside the armchairs to assist guests in reading their newspapers and magazines.

A second conversation space is formed around the Fascia Specchiata table with its harmonious lines, oval glass top with mirror edging and two independent curved stainless steel bases. This is surrounded by the most well-known and admired Azucena armchairs, genuine icons in design and comfort: three Catilina Bassa armchairs, presented in the metal grey iron finish that conveys an extreme visual lightness, accompanied by Alzabile floor lamps with metal grey aluminium reflector and chromed brass stem, two white fabric Luis lamps and one Toro, this too presented with a pale covering, a fun rounded shape created to be “important” and designed to stand in spaces of certain dimensions.

An informal but very chic bar area, very refined in its details, combines three gloss black lacquered Veneto tall stools with black leather seat with the gloss black lacquered wooden mobile Scaletta Bar, consisting of two doors with shelves covered in laminate and stainless steel inserts inside. Precious to touch and see, the Scaletta Bar is displayed both closed to highlight its compact form and open to reveal its contents and to act as a practice ladder, designed to reach the top shelves of a bookcase. Three Cilindro poufs with chromed brass band and seat covered in black horse fur or beige leather are reserved for those who love to sip an aperitif sitting in a more stretched out, relaxed way under the scenographic lights of three Diamante pendant lamps with transparent prismatic glass diffuser and green blown Murano glass hemisphere.

Then it is the turn of a conference room, presented with a neutral colour palette in the tones of beige, to release the tension even during the most intense meetings, rendered even more realistic by the image of a board meeting in progress.

Around the imposing Riunione table with veneered mahogany oval top with transparent polyester finish and beige suede insert are four beige leather Catilina Alta chairs, which leave space at the head of the table for the ergonomic shapes of two R63 armchairs, again beige suede.

The succession of environments finishes, facing out through glass doors onto the courtyard behind, with the bedroom, distinguished on its walls by embossed wallpaper. Presented here in preview is the prototype of the Petalo bed - the latest creation in chronological order by Luigi Caccia Dominioni - linear but at the same time with a strong scenic presence, which cleverly resolves the dilemma between the single and the double bed: it is in fact fitted with a single headboard on the wall, designed to enable you to join the two beds together to form a double or to separate them so as to have two single beds simply and quickly, keeping the aesthetics shape of the project intact. Beside Petalo, hung on the wall to form an unusual decoration are Cartoccio lamps, a single beetle-toned electro-coloured iridescent steel folded band, with chromed studs, while on the floor, like a totem, are Porta Dipinta table lamps, in the version with “Cattedrale” pressed glass disk, in both the amethyst and the green colouring, and Ventola lamps.

Finally, opposite the bedroom, establishing a dialogue with the interiors of a villa on the lake, is the dining room. The Base Quadra table with black gloss lacquered oval wood top and wood base with stainless steel band, almost a sculpture due to its strong scenic presence, is on display with a round revolving internal laminate tray with black lacquered motif, which can be made in any size on request, to facilitate the service at table making dinner a game in movement. It is surrounded by two Catilina Piccola Inox seats and an Elmo table lamp with polished chromed brass base, handle and retainers and a pair of internally frosted ½ oval glasses.

The exhibition route then turns back on itself: a long yet pleasant walk back to see the settings of the Azucena Grand Hotel again, and to take your time to take in its details. Those who want to are invited to stop and sit comfortably on the 3-seater and 2-seater sofas and on the armchairs of the Sant'Ambrogio line made of Azucena green mohair wool velvet, alternating with Lombardia umbrella-holders presented inverted, with the insertion of a round glass plate as a top that transforms them into small tables. Finally, supported by back and arms, the Lampada Poltrona with black leather band and adjustable chromed brass reflector allows you to consult the new catalogues prepared by the company to support the designers.

With its vision of an ideal hotel, Azucena proposes to show the public at large of architects at the Milan Furniture Fair its strength in suggesting complete environments, presenting itself as an attentive and sensitive interlocutor with whom to develop complex furnishing projects together, thanks to a catalogue capable of expressing refinement and quality with the possibility of personalisations while still respecting the original project.

The realisation avails itself of the partnership of Altai, who have personalised the Azucena Grand Hotel with their renowned carpets, the result of decades of visiting the regions of nomadism in search of ancient patterns.

While two yellow carpets made of Uzbek wild silk from the Fergana Valley - considered the most precious in the world, to the extent that it was used as long ago as the second millennium BC by the Chinese mandarins - are presented in the entrance area, in the hall a white patchwork kilim made up of fragments of ancient artefacts created in Eastern Anatolia is followed by a kilim from Morocco, obtained using a particular weaving technique that enables a swaying effect to be created making its surface appear full of movement.

Finally, in the dining room, there are three panther black carpets knotted with precious wools, as was the method used by the Central Anatolian nomads of the mountainous region of Karapinar in the early 20th century, where the quality of the materials and workmanship are intimately interwoven with aesthetic harmony, as in all Azucena creations.

Azucena Showroom, Via Passione 8, Milan

Press Preview 13 April from 10am to 2pm. Cocktail 13 April from 7pm. Hours 14-19 April 10am-9pm

Press Office

Azucena

T. +39 02 33104675

alessandra.montesi@r-w.it

barbara.barbato@r-w.it

www.azucena.it