a Piece of Furniture with Forniture Pallotta and pconp studio
"Dal cucchiaio alla città (From the spoon to the city)"
Hours
Opening 19/04
h. 6 – 9 pm
20/04 – 23/04
h. 11 am – 6 pm
26/04-10/06
by appointment
write to spaziolima @pconp.com
or whatsapp at +393478212305
From the Spoon…
(rethinking Modernism)
Anyone who’s worked at pconp knows that, before approaching a new project, the owner and founder of the firm Ermanno Previdi likes to remind one that an architect has to know how to design “from the spoon to the city.” Repeated over the years, it’s become such a catchphrase that Spazio Lima has decided to borrow it to celebrate the spirit in which pconp and Spazio Lima understand design work.
It was back in 1953 that architect Ernesto Nathan Rogers formulated the famous slogan, in the Athens Paper. In the 1950s Rogers became a voice for the transition of Italian culture from the rationalism of the 1930s to postwar modernism. A transition that had to take into account the needs of that particular historical period without, however, contradicting the Bauhaus experience. In a Europe that needed to be rebuilt entirely, Rogers’ idea was a eulogy to versatility, and an invitation to roll up one’s sleeves!
This openness to novelty respectful to its modernist roots was followed by the revolutions of the 1960s, the radicalisms of the 1970s, and the skepticism and irony of the 1980s. Achille Castiglioni’s Toio lamp (1962), Superstudio’s Quaderna furniture series (1972), and Ettore Sottsass’s Carlton bookcase (1981) are just a few examples of how the idea of a reciprocity between form and function was gradually abandoned.
Today we are in a period of transition that calls for greater resilience and sustainability. In this sense, a newfound aesthetics of function can return to suggest solutions, provided it takes into account contemporary ecological urgencies and is not reduced to an empty aesthetic fad.
Virgil Abloh, in one of his writings published in Domus in September 2021, argues that today, in an age when everything has already been invented and reinterpreted, it is enough to modify an existing object by 3 percent to achieve something new: “This 3 percent is, ultimately, self-conceded freedom. It is making design go forward, which sometimes means taking a step backward.”
In a sense, from this self-conceded freedom, Ermanno Previdi carves out his space for action to design a spoon for the Spazio Lima. A spoon-fork. A “foon” or a “spork,” the ready-made meets 3D printing! A provocation, certainly, that combines the simple and functional aesthetics of an entry-level fork from IKEA, with the urgency of ecological and sustainable design linked to upcycling processes (the starting object is a piece of cutlery recovered from the studio’s kitchen drawers) and the need to engage with new technologies and materials. An invitation to reflect, not without a hint of irony, on the profession of the architect, with the conviction that, by pursuing a renewed idea of modernity, it is still possible to reshape the society in which we live.
…to the city
(an homage to Milan)
On the one hand, the spoon that represents the ultimate in ergonomics, being the quintessential tool that helps man in a function as primordial as eating; on the other hand, the city, a system of complex functions that always places man at the center.
A Piece of Furniture (the Berlin-based collective formed by Federico Maddalozzo and Davide Zucco), together with Forniture Pallotta (the artistic catering service founded by Alessandra Pallotta) and architects Elisabetta Zuccala and Andrea Gruber of studio pconp, share the exhibition space with Federico Maddalozzo and his exhibition Sundays, to create an installation that aims to be a tribute to the city, with a focus on Milan, its architecture and atmosphere.
The works by a Piece of Furniture are functional sculptures that in the exhibition From the Spoon to the City manifest themselves in the form of three shelf and tray structures. Born from observing the landscape of urban suburbs, the colors of these sculptures are inspired by the hues of many residential buildings constructed at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, and the plastic elements were suggested by an idea of poor construction. What is evoked by a Piece of Furniture is the aesthetic of scaffolding, framework, and exposed iron rods typical in buildings still under construction.
To support and contextualize this sampling of forms borrowed from the construction industry, the displays by architects Elisabetta Zuccala and Andrea Gruber come into play. Inspired by the most iconic skyscrapers of Milan – Pirelli, Velasca and the Bosco verticale – the plinths made in MDF retrace the stages of the history of a vertical Milan with a light and playful spirit.
The works by a Piece of Furniture are functional sculptures that in the exhibition From the Spoon to the City manifest themselves in the form of three shelf and tray structures. Born from observing the landscape of urban suburbs, the colors of these sculptures are inspired by the hues of many residential buildings constructed at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, and the plastic elements were suggested by an idea of poor construction. What is evoked by a Piece of Furniture is the aesthetic of scaffolding, framework, and exposed iron rods typical in buildings still under construction.
To support and contextualize this sampling of forms borrowed from the construction industry, the displays by architects Elisabetta Zuccala and Andrea Gruber come into play. Inspired by the most iconic skyscrapers of Milan – Pirelli, Velasca and the Bosco verticale – the plinths made in MDF retrace the stages of the history of a vertical Milan with a light and playful spirit.