Brera Design District

BRERA DESIGN DISTRICT

Fuorisalone 2015: Project Formation Identity

With the upcoming week of Fuorisalone 2015 (Milan, April 14th‐19th) the Brera Design District comes to its sixth edition. The district is the creative business core of Milan; it extends along Bastioni di Porta Nuova to Via Broletto, along Via Legnano to Via Montenapoleone, sharing the perimeter of Brera’s DUC’s (Urban Business Districts). Last year the Brera Design District totalized over 136 events attended by 140 thousand visitors, while the website www.breradesigndistrict.it registered 50.000 visits and a good 170thousand page views, 1.348 tweets and 4.200 Instagram photos for tag #breradesigndistrict.

Heartened by this great result, this year it will offer a non‐stop calendar of events and a format featuring: a themed topic, the Design Lessons Award, a series of meetings, special projects and cultural events. This year's ambassadors: designer Luca Nichetto, hosting three events in Brera, artist Patrick Tuttofuoco with his installation in Piazzetta Brera and the architecture firm Piuarch, based in Via Palermo, introducing the project “Milan and its gardens”.

Project Formation Identity this year's topic and it's based on the concept of identity. In order to create an identity, you must invest in formation, it is the only way to develop planning ability. There can't be identity without a project; formation, learning and knowledge are the elements that put together the two expressions of this formula. We have chosen this topic for we wanted to question today's meaning of identity, whose concept has lost strength in reason of an overload of images at the expense of a project‐based culture. In design, thinking over this assumption means digging at the roots of an invention in order to study from close range the processes leading to a development of creative uniqueness.

In continuation of last year, the Brera Design District presents the second edition of the Design Lessons Award, dedicated to he/she who best interpreted the values standing at the base of the topic chosen. For Project Formation Identity the award goes to Martino Gamper, a designer whose work integrates art, design and handicraft. Gamper distinguished himself for his unique planning ability, for having transferred a deep knowledge of the history of design into his original creations, by translating the project‐based culture in a well defined identity.

The Brera Design District, under the patronage of Milan City Council – Department of Culture, Fashion and Design, Councillor Cristina Tajani – wishes to highlight the importance of Milan for its international role in the world of design, that reaches its maximum expression during the design week.

Events and exhibitors

This year, during the Fuorisalone, designer Luca Nichetto will be attending the Brera Design District with the Swedish brand Kinnarps, with an exhibition interpreting the trend report on new ways to live your office space (Largo Treves 5, entrance from Via Solferino). The designer will also introduce BonBon, a set of mirrored glass tables for the Check brand Verreum (Via Dell’Orso 12), whilst the Foscarini Spazio Brera showroom (Via Fiori Chiari 28) will display a brand new version of Plass lamps and the new table lamp Kurage, designed with Nendo.

Several international exhibitors of collective works have chosen this area: Austrian Design Pioneers‐Consulate General of Austria (Pelota, Via Palermo 10), Belgium is Design at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts (Via Brera 28), Berlin Design Selection‐Dynamo Design Berlin e.V. (Via Goito 3); besides international brands such as Japanese Karimoku New Standard (Via Palemo 1), Brazilian Sollos (Via Solferino 40), Chinese Pinwo Design Company (Via del Carmine 9) and Lighting Innovation Design Center (Via Clerici 10), Swedish Ateljé Lyktan (Corso Garibaldi 117), Dutch eQ+ (Via Del Carmine 11).

Once again the Swiss Ecal‐University of Art & Design of Lausanne will be showing at Spazio Orso 16 (Via dell’Orso 16).

This year the Brera Design District will also be attended by some of the major firms of Italian and international design: Sebastian Herkner, Arik Lev y, Luca Nichetto, Karim Rashid (Verreum); Emmanuel Babled, Lorenzo Damiani, Francesco Faccin, Diego Grandi, Gordon Guillaumier, Paolo Ulian (Alfa Marmi); also, some of the designers of Fabrica, hosting the firm Formafantasma (Daikin).

Also, certain firms have strategically chosen the Brera Design District for their new openings: Kartell by Laufen (Laufen Pop Up showroom, Via Pontaccio 10), Rubelli (Via Fatebenefratelli 9), Smeg (Via Moscova 58), Florim (Foro Bonaparte 12), Fantini (Via Solferino 18), Richard Ginori (Brera ang. Pontaccio), Olivieri (Largo Treves 2).

Special projects

The project Design Capital – The seven days that makes Milan the capital of design will premiere on April 10th: an independent documentary by Studiolabo in collaboration with Andrea Cuman, Massimiliano Fraticelli and Patrizio Saccò, who is also the director of the film. The documentary collects the voices of different influential designers, such as Ron Gilad and Marten Baas, and opinion makers like Wallpaper* and CoolHunting, to tell us about the ideas, ambitions, wishes of those who arrive in Milan, even if for a few days only, to experience the vibrant, lively atmosphere of Fuorisalone. Multiple perspectives linked to one another by images of the most innovative objects and outstanding installations; these images slowly build up the tale of an “endless city”, in which the urban dimension melts with a project oriented culture. Supported by the Milan Design Film Festival, Design Capital will be promoted and distributed worldwide.

www.milanodesigncapital.it

With his installation “Mom & Dad”, Patrick Tuttofuoco is back to focus on the public dimension of work and the district where his career got started. This project, curated by Nicola Ricciardi, will be introduced in Piazzetta Brera on April 9th, with the opening of the Miart and displayed during the Fuorisalone, defining for the first time the connection between the events of the “art week” and these of the Brera Design District. With “Mom & Dad” Tuttofuoco interprets the topics of collective history and personal identity; the artist wished to narrate his last fifteen years of work by leaving a sign that could express the main features characterizing his career, such as his interpretation of facial physiognomy, his gratitude to classic statuary, the project design approach to materials. The installation was created with the support of the Brera Academy of Fine Arts and in collaboration with the Department for Communication and Art Education, an additional effort to strengthen the bonds between art and design, between the district and the artist's intellectual soul.