The Monocle Minute
On Design

We have designs on Milan this week as the city prepares for Salone del Mobile. We celebrate the return of Euroluce, preview Studioutte’s temporary gallery and talk to Jonathan Olivares about refreshing Knoll’s legacy. To kick things off, our design editor, Nic Monisse, outlines the week’s potential talking points.

This year’s Salone del Mobile will have an increased emphasis on lighting thanks to the return of Euroluce, the fair’s dedicated biannual exhibition. It means that lighting brands will be front of mind for the buyers and designers who are seeking smart solutions for their projects – and helping to set the standard is Santa & Cole. The Catalonian firm will be showing new releases and offering visitors insights into its making process, which is addressing the wastefulness often associated with LED lighting. How? Well, frustrated by a lack of clearly defined industry guidelines for the repair, recycle or replacement of expired LED modules, Santa & Cole, under the direction of its editor David Martí Vilardosa, has been developing its own standards.

“As designers, we need to be more cognisant of a lamp’s lifespan,” says Martí Vilardosa, when Monocle visits Santa & Cole’s headquarters at Parc de Belloch (pictured top), just north of Barcelona. The brand’s workshops have been refining their light fittings to enable the easy replacement of LED modules and transformers without having to discard other still-functioning components or, in some cases, the entire lamp. “Sometimes technology completes the design,” says Martí Vilardosa. “But the hype surrounding novelty, often tied to the trade-fair calendar, can cause industries to lose sight of the bigger picture.” In Milan, Santa & Cole will be showing that this doesn’t have to be the case.

To see Santa & Cole’s work at Euroluce, meet its team in Hall 13 of Milan’s Rho Fiera.

For emerging design practices, showing work during Fuorisalone – the independently-run events, exhibitions and showcases occurring outside Milan’s fairgrounds during Salone del Mobile – is an important milestone. It’s something that Milan-based architecture and design practice Studioutte is doing for the first time this year as it takes over a ground-floor space next to its studio in the city’s Loreto district. Here it will present new designs, including a table lamp in brushed steel, a low wooden chair and a series of tableware and decorative objects in white painted ceramics.

“We’re transforming an unused space into a temporary design gallery,” says Patrizio Gola, an interior designer who started the studio in 2020 with his architect friend Guglielmo Giagnotti. The duo has hung panels of wrapping paper from the 4-metre-high ceiling, which divide the space into multiple sections that allow the new designs to be placed in dedicated and intimate settings. And while the display might look dramatic, Studioutte’s designs aim to reintroduce the pared-down aesthetic of mid-century Italian designers, combined with the strict geometric elements of the 1990s minimalism movement. “Italian design has become synonymous with maximalism over the past few decades,” says Giagnotti. “We would like to honour and bring back some of the greatest movements that have defined our design history.”

Studioutte’s Fuorisalone exhibition will be on show at Via Giulio e Corrado Venini 26 during Salone del Mobile.

Jonathan Olivares is a leading light in industrial design. His work, which spans interiors to furniture, is held in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Vitra Design Museum. In 2022 he was appointed as Knoll’s new senior vice-president of design. The US firm’s pavilion at this year’s Salone del Mobile will be the first physical manifestation of the direction in which he will be taking the refreshed brand. Olivares tells us about inheriting Knoll’s legacy – and how he intends to move it forward.

How do you strike the balance between contemporary needs and Knoll’s rich heritage?
By looking at what you have with a very fresh set of eyes. I feel fortunate to be working with Knoll because of its legacy. This company has roots in the early 20th century and has stayed relevant since so it’s a pleasure and a challenge to work with the existing DNA and then build on that in a way that’s contemporary. It’s not starting from scratch; rather it’s like moving into a building and deciding what you’re going to rearrange, what you might take away and, most importantly, what you are going to add. You must respect what’s there but also give room for new things to grow.

What do you plan to add and grow?
Knoll has always worked with leading architects to make designs that reflect contemporary architectural tendencies. Take Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who granted Knoll production rights to the Barcelona chair, and Eero Saarinen’s Tulip table as examples – there’s a strong relationship between the architectural tendencies and the furniture. It differs from making a piece of furniture that fits well in a contemporary building. Instead, we make furniture which is a manifestation of the same ideas that are leading the architectural discipline. I have a roster of contemporary architects that I’m bringing in: David van Severen and Kersten Geers are the first and they have designed the Knoll pavilion for Salone del Mobile.

What do you hope that people who see Knoll’s pavilion will take away from it?
The pavilion is about giving the visitor a vision that is unique in the industry and in the world of interiors. The goal is to create a world unto itself that relates back to people’s environments and the way they inhabit them. Van Severen and Geers represent a generational point of view and I’m interested in fostering that shift. Those are really the people who I’m trying to champion – and the team that I want to create. I can’t underscore enough how many incredible and brilliant people I work with.

For more from Knoll during Salone del Mobile, visit its display in Hall 4 at Milan’s Rho Fiera.

With the return of Euroluce, Salone’s dedicated lighting section, we thought it appropriate to dig into the archives for an out-of-production light that is due a return to a permanent collection. Our pick is Umbrella, a floor lamp designed by Gijs Bakker.

Considered a father of conceptual design in The Netherlands, Bakker’s portfolio is defined by a sense of fun as Umbrella shows. Designed for Dutch brand Artimeta in the early 1970s, the light is a riff on photographers’ flash umbrellas and has a fold-down canvas shade and weightless construction that is perfectly practical. Given that Droog, the famed design collective co-founded by Bakker, celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, the time is right to bring the Umbrella back into the spotlight.

When masters of their respective arts join forces, the results are often classics in the making. Such is the case with Japanese timber specialists Karimoku Furniture and London-based Zaha Hadid Design (ZHD), whose collaboration has resulted in the new Seyun furniture collection. Making its Milan debut next week, it consists of a chair, armchair and table, with each item crafted from conjoined asymmetrical pieces of oak, in a celebration of the natural grain of the wood and Zaha Hadid’s recognisable design language.

Made by the craftspeople at Karimoku Furniture, based in Aichi prefecture, every piece in the collection is completed by hand and comes in several finishes, including a futuristic silver and a metallic blue. Their tactility and sinuous, organic forms echo Zaha Hadid’s vision and show off Karimoku Furniture’s expertise in woodwork. “Wood has a unique quality,” says Maha Kutay, co-director at ZHD. “Every grain tells its own story. The natural texture allows you to connect with the objects in a primal way.”

To see the Seyun collection in person, drop into ZHD x Karimoku Furniture’s showcase at the Bagatti Valsecchi Museum in Milan during Salone del Mobile.

There’s a strong link between furniture and photography. Both use physical form and texture to play with light and colour. It’s a connection that Italian furniture brand Flexform is exploring in its Milan showroom during Salone del Mobile, with an exhibition of images taken by acclaimed Italian photographers. In that number is Gabriele Basilico.

Born in Milan, Basilico’s body of work is perhaps best encapsulated by Basilico: Spaces in Between, a recent book from Italian publisher Skira. A compilation of largely unpublished works, it offers an insight into the forgotten architectural spaces in lively and vibrant cities across the globe. A self-proclaimed “measurer of space”, Basilico contrasts colour and black-and-white imagery to dramatically highlight the drama of urban settings. The photobook – full of often overlooked suburbs, alleyways and boulevards – spans the length of Basilico’s career, from 1985 to 2011.

For more on Basilico’s work, swing past Flexform’s Milan showroom at Via della Moscova 33 during Salone del Mobile.