BLUEPRINT

THE LEADING MAGAZINE OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN

May 2011 £5.50

ALIAS: SPAGHETTI
REINVENTED
FUKSAS TAKES ROME
5+1AA REASSERTS MILAN
BENJAMIN HUBERT:
ITALIAN JOBS

50
YEARS
OF
SALONE
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BLUEPRINT
EDITORIAL
No taxis when it rains. Hotels that have to be booked a year
in advance. The Salone del Mobile Internazionale, celebrating
50 years this year, has, of course, a material impact on the
city of Milan during the manic absorbing week in April; a
week that everyone in the design industry across Europe and
in other parts of the world is currently eyeing with a mix of
eager anticipation and dread. For all the negative ways the
fair impacts on the city, it makes up for in the positive ones.
The veteran designer and Milan inhabitant Rodolfo
Dordoni once described the relationship of the industry to
the Salone and all its associated events as being far more
open compared to that of the far-snootier Fashion Week.
‘There is an exchange between the industry and the city’, he
said. Despite the ramping up of major brand involvement in
the event, as Tom Dixon and Zeev Aram describe so well in
our overview of the last five decades of the fair (page 46), the
way in which the event relates global trade to the indigenous
design culture is truly remarkable.
This is the confrontation that makes the Horizontal
Tower by Genoese architect 5+1AA such an interesting one.
The new neighbour to the Rho-Pero fairground, it is the
cornerstone of the Expo 2015 site, which has also been
master planned by 5+1AA, indicating that the city is
determined to build on the blend of trade and showmanship
15
ERNESTA CAVIOLA
that makes the Fair such a truly unique experience. This site
will be completed for the massive event in four years time, in
which the Rho-Pero district of Milan will become an even
greater hub for international commerce.
Although 5+1AA is an established practice, the
development of its master plan is being executed by a special
team of 15 recent graduates under 30 years old, guided by
five older professionals. Through the fair, the local and
regional authorities aim to not only construct a forward-
looking urban development but also mould the professionals
of tomorrow from indigenous talent with local knowledge.
14 members of the team graduated from the Polytechnic of
Milan between 2006 and 2009. Repeated advocates of multi-
disciplinary design that we are at Blueprint, this relationship
between design and urbanism, architecture and city
planning, trade and culture means that the next decade in
the fair’s history, which will take place with the Expo as a
dynamic backdrop, could be its most exciting decade ever.
Despite the limited opportunities in Italy, for even an
architect like Massimiliano Fuksas to build something like
the Fiera, or The Cloud (page 64), it hasn’t deterred a new
generation of architects being taught to think on a big scale.
Tim Abrahams, issue editor
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
MODEL: CONSETA by F. W. Möller
For further information please contact Alex Knowles Agencies t + 44 (0)7967.399759 a.knowles@cor.de www.cor.de

64
46
40 5+1AA
To the northwest of Milan is Rho
and Pero, where the Expo 2015
will be held on an area covering
1.1 million sq m master planned
by Genoese architect 5+1AA
Alfonso Femia Gianluca Peluffo.
The first building to be
completed is the Horizontal
Tower, a tower block three times
longer than it is high, situated
adjacent to Fuksas’ New Trade
Fair complex. With its golden
façade, Tim Abrahams finds Milan
dressing in its best for 2015
00
00
46 50 YEARS OF MILAN SALONE
Each year the design world
descends on the city of Milan for
arguably the most important
event in the calender. Blueprint
has selected the most important
pieces from the past five decades
to provide an overview of the
evolution of the fair. Zeev Aram,
Nigel Coates, Tom Dixon, Tomoko
Azumi and Benjamin Hubert also
share their thoughts on the
Salone and their personal
experiences of exhibiting at the
world famous event
FEATURES
00
58 INTERVIEW: BENJAMIN HUBERT
One year after graduating from
Loughborough University, Hubert
founded his own studio in North
London. Less than five years on,
he will have his designs
showcased by nine different
companies at this year’s Salone.
Caroline Roux meets the young,
confident and prolific British
designer who has a penchant for
pragmatism. Currently in talks
with Italian powerhouse Magis
over developing a new product
line, his is a star in the rising
17
58
64 THE CLOUD
While his main office is in the
centre of Rome, Massimiliano
Fuksas is only just reaching
completion of his first building in
his native city. The Congress
Centre, which the architect has
nicknamed ‘The Cloud’, is a vast,
commercial glass and steel
structure sited in Rome’s business
district. Peter Kelly reports on a
building that is able to reconcile
a postmodern expressiveness
with the austere context of the
EUR’s Rationalist architecture
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
18
REGULARS
30
20 OPENING SHOT
Stephen Mallon documents the
dumping of disused subway
carriages into the Atlantic Ocean
25 VIEW
Matt Pyke’s digital art reanimates
La Gaîté Lyrique; uproar at the
Architectural Association;
Stephen Wragg’s walking men; We
Want to be Modern in Poland;
MIT Media Lab’s new identity;
Citius by Tim Abrahams; Achtung!
by Erik Spiekermann; Sour Grapes;
Christopher Rainbow’s Nailhouse
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
83
73 PRODUCE PROFILE
Furniture manufacturer Alias has
separated from the Poltrona Frau
Group and its new found freedom
is reflected in the company’s
line-up for this year’s Salone in
Milan. Gian Luca Amadei reflects
on the brand’s strength in
combining high-tech engineering
with a sensitive consideration of
colours and textiles to create
designs of lightness and poise.
This is exemplified by its classic
Spaghetti chair, which is being
reinvented by Jasper Morrison
83 REVIEW
Exhibitions: Alison Killing reviews
Museums in the 21st Century:
Concepts, Projects, Buildings at
the KMSKA Royal Museum of Fine
Arts in Antwerp; Esme Fieldhouse
appraises Laurie Anderson, Trisha
Brown, Gordon Matta-Clark:
Pioneers of the Downtown Scene,
New York 1970s at the Barbican
Art Gallery in London
Book: Trevor Baker reviews
Voiture Minimum: Le Corbusier
and the Automobile by Antonio
Amado
2500
MATT PYKE AND REALISE
COURTESY BROADWAY 1602, NEW YORK PHOTO: BABETTE MANGOLTE
86
88 PRODUCTS
98 MAN AND MACHINE
Tom Rowe is fascinated by the
rapid obsolescence of today’s
technologies and by images of
electrical and mechanical
machines found in technological
journals, which he scours from
the UK’s largest secondhand
bookstore. This illustration is a
five-colour silkscreen print
created for the Pick Me Up:
Contemporary Graphic Art Fair at
Somerset House in March
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20

OPENING SHOT
STEPHEN MALLON
Stephen Mallon is an industrial photographer based in New York City. Mallon
achieved widespread recognition for his series of photographs entitled
‘Brace for Impact: The Salvage of Flight 1549’, which documented the
salvage of the US Airways flight that had to make an emergency landing in
the Hudson river, New York, in January 2009. This image, though, is part of
the series ‘Next Stop Atlantic’ and uncovers the fate of decommissioned
subway carriages. Mallon recorded the dumping of the vehicles in the
Atlantic off the coast of seven US states, including New Jersey, Maryland and
Virgina. Some 2,500 subway cars have been submerged by the Metropolitan
Transit Authority to help restore reefs on the eastern seabed.
www.stephenmallon.com

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

 21

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

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Ω VIEW 21
Theatre de la Gaîté in Paris was
briefly reinvented as a theme park.
Now, Super-Computer-Romantics
by British artist Matt Pyke marks its
resurrection as a host space for
digital art. Owen Pritchard reports
In 1989 the former Theatre de La
Gaîté Lyrique reopened as Magic
Planet, a theme park costing 61
million euros: an act akin to putting
Eurodisney inside the Garrick Theatre
in London. In 1991, it was closed
and became known as ‘The Sad Mute’
to locals.
Last month, the building
thundered back into life as a gallery,
after an 85 Million euro redesign by
architect Manuelle Gautrand. 18,000
visitors passed through the restored
building over five days to experience
the opening event, designed by
London-based United Visual Artists.
This month will see the opening of
its inaugural exhibition Super-
Human-Romantics by British digital
artist Matt Pyke.
Super-Computer-Romantics will
comprise 14 new works by the
digital artist and his collective,
Universal Everything. Pyke works out
of a cabin in his garden in Sheffield,
having moved to the city in the mid-
1990s to work for Designers
Republic. He began his career
studying botanical and anatomical
drawing at Portsmouth then Croydon
College of Art. He first made his
name designing record covers, then
directing videos for Sheffield-based
Warp Records.
In 2004 Pyke decided to go it
alone and formed Universal
Everything. Since then he has
designed digital art and marketing
for clients that include George
Michael, Chanel and Deutsche Bank.
His work has been seen on massive
digital screens at Heathrow Terminal
5, on the side of Skyscrapers in
China as well as on TV for Welsh
Channel S4C.
For Super-Computer-Romantics,
Pyke will be returning, to some
extent, to his roots. The exhibition
will transform La Gaîté Lyrique into
a vision of the world as Matt Pyke
sees it. It will combine rigorous
programming and sumptuous
animation to create artworks that
are both emotionally evocative and
visually complex. ‘It’s a romantic
vision,’ says Pyke. ‘There is no strong
TIM SOAR
political agenda, it is beauty for
beauty’s sake – it’s quite hedonistic
in that sense.’ And utterly
appropriate for a former variety
theatre and failed theme park.
The works will include a 3m-
projection of a quasi-human creature
represented in various materials,
which follows the evolution of
mankind’s understanding of
materials. The footsteps of the beast
will pound throughout the building,
providing a rhythm to the whole
exhibition. Pyke appreciates that his
ideas could remain abstract as visual
patterns or animations. ‘In some
cases we have anthropomorphised
ideas to get the viewer to feel
empathy for the work.’
La Gaîté Lyrique is described as
‘a stage for the digital revolution’.
The programme of events promises
to be bombastic and its opening has
reinvigorated the area just north of
the Pompidou Centre. The gallery
‘IT’S A ROMANTIC
VISION,’ SAYS PYKE.
‘THERE IS NO STRONG
POLITICAL AGENDA, IT
IS BEAUTY FOR
BEAUTY’S SAKE – IT’S
QUITE HEDONISTIC IN
THAT SENSE.’
will dedicate itself to promoting
digital art as well as providing
workshops and studios for artists
and musicians to develop their ideas.
Jerome Delormas, the director of the
gallery, underlines their approach:
‘in the digital era, some content has
no status, is it information? Is it
art?’ he asks. ‘We have a saying, ‘être
sur la brèche’, we always need to be
at the breach, at the cutting edge of
what is happening.’
La Gaîté Lyrique puts faith in
the artists who will occupy it,
providing organisational and
technical support for artists to show
the world that digital art can
transcend the misconception that it
is purely commercial and that it can
be just as emotionally stirring as
25
Above: La Gaîté will what are considered by some as
host the sights and
sounds of Pyke’s
traditional art forms.
Gautrand had to organise the
digital creatures
13,000 sq m building across seven
levels to combine the complex
functions. What exists is essentially
a box within a box, the building
centres around the Grand Salle, a
flexible performance space that can
be configured as an auditorium, a
simple empty black box and
everything in-between. The room is
clad with a metallic finish that
demonstrates where the auditorium
is pushing through the floorplates,
which also acts as a useful
orientation device.
The building is primed to be
reinterpreted however an artist feels,
with exhibition spaces looking like
conventional galleries when unused.
Almost every surface can be
projected onto and there are over
3,000 speakers hidden around the
public areas. The building is not
heroic, the grand gestures are left
to the artists, and the character
of the existing building confined to
the protected elements, the
entrance lobby and bar. Gautrand
has injected playful touches where
the programme is tighter, for
MATT PYKE AND REALISE
example the smaller, 130-seat
auditorium is bright yellow with a
sparkling green floor. Further to
this, the building has a bank of
‘éclaireuses’; modular pods on
rollers that can be plugged into
any space in the building and can
be configured as cloakrooms,
bookshelves, dressing rooms or
installations, providing further
flexibility if needed.
La Gaîté Lyrique is an exciting
prospect. Digital art finally has a
home that provides everything it
needs to develop its standing as a
serious art form outside of the
commercial world. The two opening
attractions have both been by
British artists, which is a reflection
of the talent that exists in the UK.
The Public by Will Alsop could have
been as exciting prospect as La
Gaîté Lyrique. Alsop’s eccentric
interior competes with art rather
than supporting and containing it,
this is as much the problem as lack
of curatorial direction. For now, Paris
will be the place that best
showcases the work of Britain’s
leading talent in digital art.
Super-Computer-Romantics, La Gaîté
Lyrique, Paris, 21 April-27 May 2011
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
26 In recent weeks, London’s
Architectural Association has held a
series of extraordinary meetings
during which students and staff
questioned the management of the
school and its direction. Blueprint
reports on the unfolding discussion
Below left: the Following outspoken criticism by
2010 AA exhibition, students and staff members of the
Enabling: the Work existing director Brett Steele, a
of Minimaforms
committee dominated by students
Below right: Brett will be formed to decide the future
Steele and Alex of the Architectural Association, one
Lifschutz share a of the world’s most well-known
laugh together architecture schools. On 3 March,
an extraordinary meeting, attended
by current and past students and
staff, was called to settle a dispute
that had arisen over the
appointment of Brett Steele as both
the director of the AA and the
director of the School.
Although Steele is secure in
both positions, an elected
committee, formed of
representatives from the school
community, the association’s
members and the Council will define
the exact nature of the next
director’s role. The School will vote
on the formations of a ‘working
group’ who will ‘develop alternative
models for the future academic
and organisational structure of the
AA School’.
Against a backdrop of student
protests throughout the United
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
Kingdom, the motion was the result
of student disquiet at the top
school. The rapid expansion of the
AA during Steele’s tenure, and the
radical new masterplan for the
school, which turned students
spaces at its headquarters on
Bedford Square in central London
into public areas, has caused
anxiety among the school
community. The dissension became
focussed upon the role of Brett
Steele within the AA, as defined
in his new contract of employment
in 2010.
After Steele was voted in for a
second term in November 2009, and
‘THE AA IS NOT A
BRAND,’ READ ONE IN
A LIST OF NINE
‘DECLARATION OF
NEEDS’ THAT STUDENTS
PUT FORWARD BEFORE
STEELE’S RE-ELECTION
IN 2009
SUE BARR
after further negotiations with the
Council, he is now employed as both
the director of the AA’s School of
Architecture and of the Association,
whereas in his previous contract of
2005, he was only the head of the
School. Along with changes to the
description of his duties, Steele’s
role became – in the eyes of
students – primarily a director of the
Association, which they strongly
feel is contrary to what they had
originally voted for.
Steele’s contracts became the
dominant contention during the
meeting of 3 March, and yet
according to the Honorary Librarian
Diana Periton, who claimed to have
examined them ‘clause by clause’,
she asserted that his two contracts
were in fact the same, although the
titles were different. The director’s
power over both the School and the
Association is a legacy from since
the time of Alvin Boyarski, the first
Chairman of the school (1971-
1990), who, according to Paul Finch
‘ran everything’. Roger Cunliffe, who
was Principal of the School around
the time when the role of Chairman
was created, concurred: ‘Alvin came
in at a critical time in the AA, he
saved the AA, and he did it by being
an absolute thug. And that role has
de facto continued in his successors.’
The furore over the contracts is
however, inexplicably linked with
concerns over the future direction
of the AA. ‘The AA is not a brand’,
read one in a list of nine
‘Declaration of Needs’ that the
student body put forward before
Steele’s re-election in 2009 (and re-
distributed in the weeks leading up
to the meeting). The last of the
demands proclaimed: ‘We need a
director who can focus on the School
and not the Association.’ Alex
Lifschutz, the current President of
the Council, argued at the meeting
on 3 March that ‘the AA is a single
company and a charity, there’s no
separate corporate structure for the
various schools or for membership’.
The School can nevertheless be
seen as comprising of the current
student body and staffs, whereas
the Association is formed of
extramural members.
Critics of Steele’s tenure within
the school, however, believe there is
a more fundamental issue at stake.
Mike Weinstock, a graduate
programme director at the school,
has summarised the two opposing
camps as follows: ‘AA Inc. – A
business entity that intends to
expand by selling very cheap
Membership in large numbers…
There will be a school as a part of
this corporate entity, and it will be
subservient to the corporate
entity’. This is juxtaposed
against: ‘an association with
members, formed for the purpose of
carrying on a School of
Architecture… The Council has no
role in academic activities.’
Until recently, Weinstock had
been acting as a figurehead for
student dissent. Student Carrie Lim
wrote in the weekly student
publication, Fulcrum: ‘Mike was
cast in a negative light... [and]
painted as the source who has led to
this messy situation. This is very
unfair to him because this issue has
arisen ultimately from us students.
He is only voicing it to the school.
No senior staff in the school will
ever have the guts to do what he has
done for us.’ Weinstock however,
after threatening a vote of no
confidence, has since backed down
and retreated from this
confrontational position.
The AA’s Honourary Secretary
Chris Libby said: ‘I think it’s
important that the consultation
that’s happening next is organised
by Council with representatives from
any other bodies…to ensure that
that process of consultation is
absolute [and] not organised by the
Director.’ Brett Steele was
unavailable for comment. VALERIE BENNETT
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STEPHEN WRAGG
There is surprising creativity in the
offical imagery on our streets, which
Stephen Wragg records in his Walking
Men project. Esme Fieldhouse reports
on the story behind the anomaly
‘The pedestrian symbol was never
intended to be painted,’ says Stephen
Wragg, ‘it appeared on the road by
mistake’. Over the last seven years,
he has been photographing the
walking men painted on our paths.
The preoccupation began when
Wragg was commissioned by
Hertfordshire Highways to design a
map for the growing number of cycle
routes and found his gaze directed
instead to a series of 2-D individuals.
The project has revealed the
unexpected presence of self-
expression in a system steeped in
standardisation and quality control.
The emergence of these painted men
is a recent phenomenon, connected
to the increased popularity of cycling
and consequent cycle lanes, which
have created ambiguous territory.
Indeed, why should we need to
be told where to walk? The walking
human figure on traffic signs – or S2
as the symbol is officially referred –
has not been standardised for road
markings. In addition, the painting
tools that are provided to road
painters only produce lines of
uniform width. The Department of
Transport (DoT) admits there is no
template for the walking figure
because it is not an authorised sign
and there are no intentions to
introduce one.
It is assumed by the government
department that pedestrians always
have priority on pavements and so
DoT is against giving any instructions
that suggest otherwise. In practice,
however, local authorities have found
the need to introduce the S2 symbol
to paths. Graphic designer Sue Perks,
who is investigating the legacy of
the Isotype – standardised symbols
for information systems – as part of
her PhD thesis at the University of
Reading, says ‘the walking men
reveal a lack of agreement between
designers more than any segregation
between designer and painter’.
Since Otto Neurath devised the
Isotype (or International System of
Typographic Picture Education) more
than 80 years ago, there has been a
debate in graphic design circles
between advocates of
standardisation and those who
support adaptation according to
brief. Perks suspects that while this
theoretical argument has gone on
among designers, painters have been
churning out these anomalous men
regardless. The tarmac decoration
accompanying the new cycling routes
has not gone unnoticed by the
design world. In 2000, the design
agency Carter Wong Tomlin published
the book, 1057 – the DoT code for a
cycle lane – which documented the
subtle differences between ‘painted
bikes’ in London. In the book,
creative director Phil Carter likens
some of the freehand bicycles to
‘instruments of torture’.
The individuality of the men, as
illustrated by Wragg’s project,
harkens back to an age before
Herbert Spencer’s photographic
essays were published in
Typographica in 1961. The graphic
designer highlighted the confusing
mix of inconsistent signage at a time
when the government was
constructing a high-speed road
network. This led to the ambitious
project of developing an entirely new
system of lettering and symbols,
rigorously undertaken by Jock
Kinneir and Margaret Calvert.
Although the symbols on road signs
now seem generic in their familiarity,
Calvert created the Transport
pictograms from personal references
(a cow called Patience at her parents’
farm was the model for the farm
animals warning sign).
The walking men, however, are
strongly singular and some of the
figures beggar belief. Wragg’s
29
To see more, visit:
walkingmen.org,
and submit your
own discovery
favourite discovery is a multi-limbed
creature in Leicester, where the
painter has superimposed his own
figure atop another. ‘How can
someone walk away from something
that looks so alien?’ he says. Tracey
Waller, who has been running the
Graphic Design MA for five years at
Chelsea College of Art (where Kinneir,
Calvert and Wragg all studied), says
‘this project contributes to a wider
discussion questioning the
increasing visual clutter on our
streets’. As a designer and educator,
Waller believes in researching new
ways of thinking about the brief
before it even reaches paint and cites
the Shared Space concept as a good
example. The project, piloted across
Europe, is based on the integration
of traffic with human activity and
notable for its lack of road signs.
It is hoped that by ‘going public’,
Wragg can build a collection of all
the undiscovered examples, leading
to a book or exhibition. Through
participating, people will need to
pay more notice to their
surroundings and how they
experience the city by foot. Wragg
also knows a raised profile could
unfortunately lead to the men’s
demise, as Highways departments
smarten up their act; he sympathises
with an archaeologist, ‘when you
uncover something, you can’t help
but destroy it’. An archive will
ensure a permanent record of this
enjoyable blip in the British
tendency to standardisation.
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
30
Polish design during the Soviet era is
celebrated at an exhibition in Warsaw,
We Want to be Modern. Peter Kelly
finds a rich source of inspiration for
young designers in Poland today
One tends to think of the design
produced by countries under Soviet
rule as dour and functional. Yet an
exhibition currently running at the
National Museum in Warsaw reveals
the 1950s and 60s as a period of rich,
colourful and bold experimentation for
design in Poland. The show, entitled
We Want to be Modern, includes
around 180 examples of graphic
design, textiles, furniture and
ceramics produced in Poland between
1955 and 1968. It was a time when
Polish design moved on from its social
realist past, into more organic forms
inspired by the likes of Alvar Aalto and
Charles and Ray Eames. The
combination of international
influence with the ingenuity provoked
by limited resources produced a
distinctive aesthetic that continues to
influence Polish designers today.
The explosion of modernist design
during this period resulted, in part,
from the decline of Stalinism.
According to exhibition curator Anna
Frackiewicz, ‘the death of Stalin in
1953 caused a political thaw that led
to a sudden, new embrace of
Modernism.’ Yet the productivity was
also due to the institutions
established by communism. Much of
the furniture included in the
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
exhibition was produced for the
country’s Institute of Industrial
Design (IID), a government body
established in 1950 to encourage the
production of new models and
prototypes for industry. The
involvement of artists brought a fresh
awareness of form and colour to the
work: among those working for the IID
were abstract painter Roman
Modzelewski and Jan Kurzatkowski,
whose chairs are part furniture design,
and part delicate sculptures.
This initiative came at a time
when Poland was opening up to
international influences. In 1955, two
years after the death of Stalin, Warsaw
staged the 5th International Festival
of Youth and Students. It was
intended to promote unity among the
youth of the world, but became
significant for a different reason. The
street decorations were designed and
made by students, bringing a rush of
colour to the city. It is now seen as a
key moment for a change in the
aesthetics and culture of Polish art
and design. In the textiles shown at
We Want to be Modern, particularly,
one can see international influence in
the use of bold sweeps of colour and
decidedly non-Polish emblems,
including cartoonish drawings of
kangaroos and abstracted depictions
of African women.
The furniture designers had more
difficulty in taking on this global
perspective. They frequently had to
mimic the curved aesthetics produced
by western designers working in
plastics and other synthetic materials
because these were largely unavailable
in Poland. Instead designers worked
with available materials such as wood
or steel and traditional techniques like
weaving. Modzelewski’s bright red
plastic armchair, Fotel, was an
exception. Designed in 1957, Le
Corbusier showed an interest in
buying the patent with the intention
of sending it into mass-production.
Unfortunately, at that time, it was
practically impossible to cooperate
between Poland and France .
For older generations, who lived
in Poland before the fall of
communism, products from the 1950s
are seen as unwelcome reminders from
difficult times. Yet the period is now a
source of great inspiration for young
Polish designers. One example is
Tomek Rygalik, who will be included in
this year’s Young Creative Poland
installation at the Salone de Mobile in
Milan and has worked for many
international companies including
Moroso and Ideal Standard. For the
designer, the Soviet era remains a key
inspiration. ‘Many of my ideas come
from the unavailability of things: I
have memories of my father having to
makes things for himself. My work
focuses upon creating minimal
structures and trying to get something
for free, out of what’s already there,’
says Rygalik.
On the same stand in Milan will be
the Polish furniture manufacturer Iker,
which is turning Kurzatkowski’s
prototypes into mass-production
Above: a printed
silk textile by Anna
models. ‘The goal was to work on the
functionality without losing the
Orzechowska
character of it,’ says the company’s
CEO Janusz Obtulowicz. A new version
Below: Jan
Kurzatkowski’s of Kurzatkowski’s Hull Chair, for
original Hull Chair example, replaces the thin twine that
formed the prototype’s seat with an
intertwined mesh of wide straps. The
result is, appropriately, a hybrid of his
original vision with elements of Alvar
Aalto’s Lounge Chair.
There are plans for We Want to be
Modern to tour other institutions in
Poland before travelling abroad. It is
clear that, as this rich period of Polish
design gains further attention, its
influence and importance will only
become more apparent.
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Rather than designing one new logo to
celebrate 25 years of pushing digital
boundaries, MIT Media Lab has come
up with 40,000 versions to last the
next 25 years, writes Gwen Webber
Last year Media Lab, the Boston-
based experimental faction of
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT), celebrated its 25th
birthday. The occasion was marked
by the launch of its new graphic
identity. Following the opening of
the Lab’s new home, E14, this
February, the new logo also heralded
a period of transition for the
institution. In the run-up to the
anniversary, the school recruited
Richard The, a recent Media Lab
graduate, along with E Roon Kang to
reinvigorate the existing logo, a
simple yet robust colour bar, which
had been the institution’s only
dedicated graphic identity since its
establishment back in 1985.
After many attempts at
reformatting the original design,
however, David Small, a Lab professor
until last year who instigated the
redesign, felt it was time to give
Media Lab a fresh start. ‘It is
meaningful that it marks the end of
25 years and that this is for a new
generation for the next 25,’ says
Small. The main ambition of the
design was to encompass all aspects
of the school. The Logo embodies its
unusual focus group-based structure;
its keen encouragement of cross-
disciplinary education and research;
its transparency both to the public
and between researchers. The
original graphic identity by
Jacqueline Casey, developed in 1984,
was however a more fundamental
basis for the new logo. That was
based, in turn, on a panelled wall
mural by Kenneth Noland, which was
painted directly on the metal skin of
the atrium in the IM Pei-designed
Wiesner building (which used to
house the Media Lab until recently)
and continues along the exterior
surface of building.
Casey’s colour bar was never a
logo per se and by the time Small
returned to work at the Lab 10 years
after graduating, it was a redundant
feature with little in the way of a
graphic unity to the expansive
subsets of researchers and the main
institution itself. ‘Jacqueline’s
identity might have been one of the
first changeable systems to be
designed,’ says Small. ‘It bugged me
how much they had ruined the
original identity – I’m not sure
anyone was left who knew it was
even a system.’ Taking the original
logo as a starting point and referring
to tangible aspects of the school –
the new building’s glass atrium
structure and its coloured stairs
demarking the different zones of
research within it – the new logo
stretches the limits of graphic design.
‘It was a complex process,’ says The,
who now works with Berlin-based
practice The Green Eyl. ‘Because the
school is so broad in its scope and
reputation.’ Brought on-board by
Small, The was the perfect candidate
for the job, having previously worked
on interactive and adaptive
installations with designer Stefan
Sagmeister in New York.
Using a custom-made algorithm
the new design features three
intersecting coloured spotlights,
which can be organised into 40,000
different shapes and 12 colour
combinations. The new logo will
supply the Media Lab with 25 years’
worth of individualised business
cards, which was the actual start-
point for the redesign. Each Media
Lab student and professor can
choose from the range on offer and
claim their own unique logo shape
and colour combination. According
to Small, these will eventually act as
a key to access people’s profile and
work. ‘The card could be waved in
front of a computer and open a new
world,’ he says. This also avoids the
common problem of devolving a
core identity. Rather than numerous
iterations diluting the Media Lab
brand, instead they align the
various personalities of all staff and
students with the institution’s
stated mission.
33
Left: an algorithm
generates individual
permutations of
Media Lab’s logo
Indeed, although welcomed by
many, the recent rebranding
highlights the Lab’s need for such
clarity, something that Small feels is
key to its future growth and
direction. ‘Since being established,
the Lab’s mission has become much
broader,’ he says. ‘In 1989, when I
graduated we were anticipating the
internet and everything being about
social media. But now it is a very
different environment.’ Under the
latest directorship of Frank Moss
and guided by the motto ‘inventing
a better future’, the Lab has become
increasingly adaptive to new
challenges, shifting its research to
include diverse fields of study such
as nanotechnology and
biomechanics. While its research is
behind the underlying technology of
numerous ground-breaking
commercial products including Guitar
Hero, Lego Mindstorms and
initiatives such as One Laptop per
Child, the Lab’s graphic identity
remained ambiguous.
Conversely, now the institution
has an identity – albeit an adaptive
and personalised one – it has no
titular head after director Moss
resigned in February. It seems an
unusual situation for a brand to
define an institution’s identity
without a leader to promote it. So
while the new logo builds on the
Media Lab’s history and reflects its
current relevance, it will be down to
the new director to take the
institution out of a transition phase
and define a clear approach
for the future.
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
34SOUR
GRAPES ONE (METRE) UPMANSHIP
It is at best a dubious title to be
squabbling over. But we hear that
there is a battle taking place over
the ‘Tallest Building in China by a
British Architect’. Grapes was
bemused to find that two British
firms are engaged in a game of,
quite literally, one upmanship.
Wilkinson Eyre is just overseeing the
completion of its 440-metre tall
Guangzhou International Finance
Centre. At a recent event, director
Chris Wilkinson was happily
revelling in the knowledge that it
was the winner of this unofficial
contest. A tap on the shoulder from
a certain Sir Terry Farrell was
followed by a quick message that, in
fact, his (somewhat interestingly
named) Kingkey building in
neighbouring Shenzhen is a metre
taller and has just topped out.
GREEN REVOLUTION
We can only applaud those
architects who were working in
Libya, such as Feilden Clegg Bradley
Studio and Edward Cullinan
Architects (ECA), who have done the
ethical thing and ran away from a
civil war. This is, of course, the only
responsible thing to do in these
situations. We are pleased though,
that all the good work put into these
projects will not go to waste. Grapes
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
received an email from ECA listing a
number of talks taking place at its
offices on the subject of
sustainability. One of these will
focus on Shahat Garden City in
Libya, which was intended to be the
country’s first zero carbon city. Zero
chance of that happening now.
FOOTBALL’S GOING AWAY
US architect Peter Eisenman has
distinguished himself to Grapes
before with his genuine knowledge
of the English Premier League.
Another fan is Brad Cloepfil of Allied
Works, Oregon’s finest purveyors of
highly textured modernist
architecture. Cloepfil was in London
just long enough to deliver a lecture
at the AA and tell us his best Wayne
Rooney anecdote before heading up
to Manchester to see them knock
Arsenal out of the FA Cup, courtesy
of his connections with the Portland
mafia (otherwise known as Nike).
ONCE A BLUE, NOW JUST BLUE
Cloepfil’s story ran something like
this: last year, on a flight from
Portland to Newark, Cloepfil was
upgraded to first class, where he sat
in front of a figure curled up on the
seat in a hoodie, which he first took
to be a young girl. Throughout the
flight this figure was sobbing, often
uncontrollably. As they got off the
plane at Newark, Cloepfil realised it
was Wayne Rooney returning from
his week-long injury rehabilitation
in Stumptown following allegations
that he’d slept with a prostitute
during his wife’s pregnancy. Clearly
he had enjoyed himself so much that
he wasn’t overly keen on returning.
DIRT-FREE DANCING
One of Grapes’ contacts had the
pleasure of attending the launch of
the AEG Nimble vacuum cleaner last
month. The company was keen to
demonstrate that its newest model
was ‘ergonomically designed for easy
manoeuvrability [sic]’. There was
only ever one way any self-
respecting vacuum cleaner company
would show this off: by inviting
Vincent and Flavia of Strictly Come
Dancing to do a dance with it. The
crowd watched open-mouthed as the
pair tango-ed across the floor of the
Waldorf-Astoria for five minutes,
while clutching the domestic
appliance. Unfortunately, the first
model of the machine broke and a
new Nimble had to be found in
order for it to be hot-footed across
the ballroom.
NOT IN MY FRONT ROOM-ISM
A Pop-up art show in a flat! Grapes
was excited about the possibility of
rummaging through someone’s
personal effects and being snobby
about soft furnishings, all in the
name of art. Then came the crushing
news that the next installment of
Salon, London’s grooviest,
invitation-only pop-up art show,
had to change venue after the
philistines who lived with the
curator decided that, on second
thought, they didn’t fancy eating
their dinner in the warm glow of an
artwork entitled: GFP positive tectal
neurons with axons (red) and
neuropil (white). Party poopers.
BUZZ OFF! BEE GONE!
Walking through Bunhill Fields
cemetery, Grapes was charmed to
find Inn Vertebrate, an insect
hotel by Metalanguage Design,
nestled among the headstones. After
a spot of research, Grapes set off to
find the other insect hotels that
were installed across London, as the
result of an architectural
competition, for the 2010 year of
Biodiversity. Our next stop was the
Bumblebee City Nesters, in West
Smithfield, designed by Fisher
Tomlin. Alas, here we found the
installation dumped on its side and
broken, fallen victim to some
building works that were going
on in the area. Shamefully, it
seems there’s no room for
Biodiversity now it’s 2011.
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CITIUSΩ
It was the cartoon equivalent of Henry
Kissinger turning up to one of Mikhail
Gorbachev’s charity galas: grizzled
campaigners of the Cold War smiling at
each other after the battle is done. In
1988, Disney produced a special
broadcast called Mickey’s 60th
Birthday. One of the guests who
appeared was Misha the Bear – the
mascot for the 1980 Moscow Olympics
– a recognition by the best known
animation studio in the world of the
enduring impact of a character created
to represent a sporting event. It was
testimony to the way Misha had
transcended the Games.
This little bear is obviously a
saccharine-sweet treat, but he is
meant to be. Created by Victor
Chizhikov, a children’s illustrator of
twenty years, he is also the most
successful Olympic mascot. Even in
Soviet Russia, it did well on a
commercial level. Over two million
Misha dolls were sold, more than the
Waldi at Munich in 1972. The latter
was designed by the German graphic
design great Otl Aicher and was the
first official mascot. Although the
dachshund is charming in the
way that the responsible wooden toys
sold in Habitat in the 1980s were, the
two-dimensional logo lacks depth and
emotional resonance.
Why was Misha able to develop a
life of his own? Because he emerged
from a graphic culture; first from
Russian folklore and then through the
sentimental animation of the Soviet
Union. Like all good elements of
Olympic design, it related to a cultural
tradition beyond the Olympics as well
as the Olympic tradition itself.
Furthermore Chizhikov wasn’t
commissioned to create a graphic
device but a narrative.
In the closing ceremony in 1980
a giant inflatable Misha was carried
into the Luzhniki Stadium carrying
balloons. Another figure of the mascot
was created in the stands by the
crowd holding placards above their
In every Games since 1972, there has been a loyal
participant: the Olympic mascot. A succesful mascot
can embody an emotional legacy that remains with
the spectators long after the event has finished
heads. At the appropriate moment,
certain members flipped over their
placards thereby animating their
Misha and making it cry. The inflatable
figure was then allowed to drift off
into the sky. TV footage shows grown
men and women sobbing. Misha did
the job of a mascot by turning
everyone into children. Seb Coe still
looks slightly dappy when Misha’s
name is mentioned.
Bizarrely, the Americans proved
unable to match Misha for sheer
schmaltz. Los Angeles in 1984 was
represented by Sam, the bald eagle,
designed by a Walt Disney cartoonist.
It failed to catch on because of its
unabashed jingoism. An eagle dressed
in stars and stripes, called Sam, it was
Ronald Reagan’s dream turned into a
cartoon. Even worse, though, was the
terrifying Izzy from Atlanta 1996,
which wasn’t an anthropomorphised
animal, but an animated ‘thing’
reminiscent of a furious blackcurrant.
Its name is supposed to have evolved
from the refrain, ‘what is he?’
And while one can sympathise
with creative teams who are looking
at a depleted stock of wildlife to
choose from, the use of indeterminant
‘things’ is never successful – the
gormless club-footed twins, Athena
and Phevos for Athens 2004 were
particularly odd, although they were
meant to refer to ancient Greek dolls.
It must be said that Wenlock and
Mandeville, the mascots for 2012, are
another example. To give credit,
London has done the hard-edged stuff
well – the urban masterplanning, the
landscaping for the park, the
secondary stadiums such as the
Handball arena and the Velodrome –
but it has failed to do the soft stuff.
From Seb Coe down, the Olympic
delivery agencies are in constant thrall
to the idea of ensuring the Games are
attractive to the young people of the
East End. However, they seem to think
that these young people have wildly
different values to their own and must
37
therefore be ambushed with bright
colours, angular forms and bottom-
heavy cycloptic cartoons.
While Mandeville and Wenlock
both have an immediate manic
attraction as one would expect from
an animated one-eyed drop of steel,
they emerge from no illustrative
tradition or even a recognisable
design vocabulary. We don’t know how
to read them. The five figures of the
Beijing Games in 2008 were legible as
manga-esque readings of Chinese
mythical figures. But poor Mandeville
and Wenlock, who manage to be both
phallic and sexless, are not even
legible within the tradition of gaming.
The stout characters of Mario and
Sonic were wrought from the
limitations of technology during the
1980s and grew as characters as
bitrates quickened.
As a consequence, history has
been forced on them. Their names
refer to the Shropshire village where
an early version of the Games was held
THE MASCOTS FOR
2012, MANDEVILLE
AND WENLOCK,
EMERGE FROM NO
ILLUSTRATIVE
TRADITION OR
DESIGN VOCABULARY
and a hospital which pioneered work
with paraplegics. Michael Morpurgo
was charged with giving them a back
story in which the mascots are
fashioned from globs of metal by a
retired steel worker from Bolton called
George. It is a bonkers post-
rationalisation of design-by-
committee. The online game on the
2012 website, in which you can dress
your Wenlock and Mandeville in
clothes of your choice, says more. Give
these figures some personality, some
life. Please.
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
38
ACHTUNG!
At first, Flat Eric just wasn’t flat enough. The
opposite problem is true when exhibiting the work
of typeface designers: it’s not three-dimensional.
That’s not to say that the process isn’t full of layers
Anybody remember this: a puppet
called Flat Eric (sic) built by Jim
Henson’s Creature Shop of Muppets
fame? He was flat because a car had
run over his head, which didn’t stop
him and his friend Angel riding around
California, running away from the
police. The French music producer Mr.
Oizo featured Flat Eric in a video. Mr.
Oizo, aka Quentin Dupieux, said of his
collaboration with Henson: ‘when they
first made him he looked too much like
Kermit. He had a rounded body, which
he isn’t supposed to have’. While I do
remember seeing the video, or perhaps
some Flat Eric commercials, I wouldn’t
know all this without MuppetWiki
(which really does exist). This internet
thing is amazing sometimes.
I am reminded of this because I
have just gone through the opposite
experience, from being a very flat Erik
to being an ‘Erik in space’. On the
occasion of being given the Federal
German Design Prize for Lifetime
Achievement (not bragging, just
quoting) someone had the stupid idea
to announce an exhibition of my work
at the venerable Bauhaus Archives in
Berlin. This means that all my stuff –
essentially flat pieces – had to be
displayed in a gallery space which is,
MELVIN GALAPON
by definition, three-dimensional, i. e.
not flat at all.
I may have been given a lifetime
award (doesn’t that sound like an early
orbituary?), but I am not one of those
old graphic designers who has spent
their lives doing posters or book
covers – not even record sleeves, let
alone CD covers. All those would have
simply required an investment into
Erik Spiekermann
set up MetaDesign
some cool black picture frames and a
and FontShop, and trip to the framing shop. Bingo! There
worked in London would have been an exhibition of flat
from 1973 to 1981. stuff that the gallery people could
A teacher, author simply hang onto the walls, thus
and designer, he is magically creating a spatial
also a partner at
experience, or so curators often think.
EdenSpiekermann,
which has offices In graphic design BD (Before
in Berlin and Digital), the originals were never made
Amsterdam to be seen, they were made for
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
reproduction only. Before we all had
computers on our laps, the process of
designing involved telling other
people how to make things for us.
Designers back then had to write
legibly because we would spend a lot
of our time writing instructions to
typesetters, photographers, printers
and model makers. Every designer
friend I know loves looking at the
traces of that process: how did he
sketch, what did she write, how
precise were their instructions? Some
of those rough napkin scribbles end up
framed as art, simply because the
messages inscribed on them were too
obscure to communicate anything to
anybody outside the circle of initiated
professionals.
As I expected most of the visitors
to my exhibition to be other
designers, I decided to not simply
display the result of my efforts –
logos, brochures, books, CD manuals,
typeface showings – but some of the
process that was involved in getting
there. If you work mostly on large
corporate design systems, as I have
done, the actual results are seen in
what other people make of the grids,
rules and instructions that we devise.
For example, I couldn’t show an
annual report, which although it had
been designed following our
instructions, was not directly designed
by us. Just as my type-designs are
never seen naked, in the flesh, but
always through somebody else using
my fonts. More often than not, I am
totally and pleasantly surprised by
how good some designers make them
look. Occasionally, of course, I am
disgusted. Designing a typeface is like
writing a pop song: once it’s out there,
you cannot stop anyone from singing
it in the shower, horribly out of tune.
My laziness by far surpasses my
vanity and as a result my archives are
patchy, to say the least. A fire, two
floods, one break-in and several moves
have further diminished what little I
considered worth keeping in the first
place. Putting those few bits and
pieces on the walls and making no
effort to redress the effect that time
and general negligence have had on
them, still served to illustrate the way
even complex design systems start
with little scraps of paper, which
might nevertheless tell a story to
those who have learned to read them.
Black frames and neatly cut mounts
would have elevated those fragments
way above their worth. We made a
feature out of the lack of slick
originals by using pieces of corrugated
card, screwed directly to the walls,
gluing sketches, proofs, print-outs and
complete books onto them. Heaps of
materials created more than just one
flat layer, while showing the process
added a fourth dimension: time.
Turning a bug into a feature also
got us out of the ‘art’ corner that any
gallery space tends to have whatever
is displayed on its hallowed walls.
Like Flat Eric, what we do is only fit
for commercials.
DESIGNING A
TYPEFACE IS LIKE
WRITING A POP
SONG: YOU CAN’T
STOP ANYONE FROM
SINGING IT OUT
OF TUNE
 Want to work
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in the Hive?

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a meeting on
from them about how they need
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the evolution of our Third Space
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to form places where you can meet, think and work. the space you have available.
 40
THIS SHIMMERING GOLDEN TOWER MARKS THE
ENTRANCE TO THE FIERA MILANO IN STYLE, BUT
IT ALSO POINTS TOWARDS A GREATER AMBITION
FOR THE CITY TO BE AN INTERNATIONAL CENTRE
OF TRADE. TIM ABRAHAMS REPORTS ON THE
NEW ADMINISTRATIVE HUB DESIGNED BY
5+1AA – THE FIRST BUILDING COMPLETED AS
PART OF THE EXPO 2015 MASTERPLAN – WHICH
LIES ON THE SHIFTING BOUNDARY BETWEEN
URBAN AND RURAL IN NORTHWEST MILAN

THE
HORIZONTAL
TOWER
5+1AA
ALL IMAGES BY ERNESTA CAVIOLA

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011


As Milan spreads out to the northwest, it
encounters the smaller settlements of Rho
and Pero. Traditionally this area has been a
‘threshold’ where the city becomes
landscape and the landscape transforms
into a city. It is also a place of trade where
Milan rolls out towards Turin to the west
and France to the north across the Simplon
Pass, which was turned into an early
highway by Napoleon. This sense of being
on a threshold with the rest of the world
was strengthened when the Rho-Pero
exhibition complex, home to the Milan
Furniture Fair, was opened in 2005. The
masterplan will become a full reality in
2015 when the next International Expo
after Shanghai commences on land adjacent
to the existing Fair complex.
The area occupied by the Expo 2015
will cover an area of 1.1 million sq m.
Fuksas’ Fairground is being considered as
the cornerstone of the major
redevelopment of this entire area. The
zone had long been an industrial area
before being converted to logistical and
municipal uses as well as agriculture.
The fairgrounds and the Expo site will be
connected by a pedestrian bridge adjacent
to the Rho-Pero high-speed rail station.
The chosen area is rectangular in shape
41
with an overall length of nearly 3km and
its masterplan was created by the Genoa-
based practice 5+1AA Alfonso Femia
Gianluca Peluffo, in association with Jean-
Baptiste Pietri.
Giving a first indication of what the
area will one day look like, the Horizontal
Tower, also designed by 5+1AA, will house
the offices for the Fondazione Fiera Milano,
which oversees development of the fair on
behalf of the local government and
affiliated management companies such as
the Fiera Milano. As Professor Gianpiero
Cantoni, CEO of Fondazione Fiera Milano,
makes clear, the building also states a new
ambition for Milan. ‘The Horizontal Tower
stands for the immediate future of the
Fondazione Fiera Milano and its group, and
also of the city, province and region as they
prepare to host Expo 2015. A date and an
event we must be ready for, dressed in our
finest robes, so that we take the world
stage looking our very best.’
The Horizontal Tower is as much a
response to the existing condition as a
proposal for the future, however. As anyone
who has dragged themselves along the
length of the Feria, laden down with
promotional literature, will know all too
well, the building is defined by anΩ
The Horizontal Tower lies
on the neighbouring site
to Fuksas’ Rho-Pero
exhibition complex
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
42

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

 43

Top: the gold façade apparently relentless horizontal spread.

alternates between This aspect led the practice to respond with
transparent and opaque, a tower 48m in height and around 132m
responding to sunlight
in length. The new building now marks
Right: the cantilevered the perimeters of the Trade Fair. At the
heli-pad reasserts the same time, the structure complies with
area as a hub of trade the demands of the short construction time
and transport specified in the competition brief, not to
mention the relatively constrained cost –
Left: the Horizontal Tower
32 million euros – which mitigated against
balances a rich mix of
a high-rise structure. ‘Thirteen months of
textures and materials in
its finishes building work, plus another two months
of finishing operations, is really very
little,’ says Attilio Navarra, President of
Italiana Costruzioni.
The contract for the building was an
international limited competition won by
Navarra’s family-owned business, which
has been in operation for four generations.
The construction company has an
unparalleled reputation having built Zaha
Hadid’s MAXXI in Rome and restored the
Basilica of Sant’Antonio in Padua. Navarra
himself is considered not only to be an
exceptional builder but also a true advocate
of architecture. 5+1AA commented that
he is ‘a man of words, who has changed
the vision of architecture in Italy’. Navarra
in turn is a fan of the architects and having
won the contract for the Fondazione Fiera
Milano building, awarded the chief design
work to the Genoese practice.
This swift piece of urbanism designed
at Rho-Pero illustrates not only 5+1AA’s
pragmatism, a feature that Navarra himself
admires, but also their ambition ‘to Ω
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
44
5+1AA’s building is a supercede and reassert the city’. Their
response to the sprawl of previous work has performed this role in
the Rho-Pero Fair complex more historic fashion. With the Frigoriferi
on the outskirts of Milan
Milanesi e Palazzo del Ghiaccio in the
Porta Vittoria area of Milan, the practice
created clarity among an assemblage of
historical buildings and added to them with
a distinctive lit façade. This approach has
made the practice attractive elsewhere; like
other Italian architects (see feature on
Fuksas, page 64) 5+1AA has found success
in France. In 2007 the practice opened an
office in Paris, followed in 2009 by a
competition win to redevelop Marseilles.
Meanwhile they are slowly determining
the face of a new Milan: in addition to the
Expo masterplan, in 2010, their Bi Toy and
Arts Factory opened and they won the
competition to design a residential
complex for the property developer
Generali SGR.
There is a rich enjoyment of texture in
their work. The gold façade of the
Horizontal Tower is a statement not of
luxury but of aesthetic joy. For Navarra the
cladding was the real test of the building.
‘I was very concerned because even the
smallest mistake in terms of colour would
have been catastrophic, bearing in mind the
scale/size of the building, but we managed
to pull it off. I let the architects do their
work, because I am just a surveyor,
engineer, promoter and legal practitioner,’
he says. The two differing cladding
systems, transparent and opaque, arise
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
from articulating the difference between
the two structures. In addition, the glass
façade is exposed to the north. Depending
on the sun’s orientation, the golden-finish
brise-soleil works as a shield to the sun
on the other façade.
It is a clever finish to a simple
building, which is composed of a regular
web of longitudinal frames featuring three
rows of columns divided up
asymmetrically to comply with internal
layout, allowing for an open structure that
is extremely simple to build. The overall
building has a trapezoid-shaped form with
a relatively slender base at less than 16m
in depth, and is effectively two different
buildings connected by a foyer of 13
storeys. This allows a vertical link
between the various floors by means of
stairs and lifts but also between the
passageways made of steel beams and slabs
of sheet metal.
However, the most defining
characteristic of the building is an
overhanging metal structure constructed
on the roof. Practically, this will provide a
helicopter-landing pad. It is more than
simply a pragmatic feature however, it is a
statement, or indeed re-statement, of the
Fair as a hub of transport and trade. Given
the relationship that the building will
develop with the Expo, the Horizontal
.
Tower is a deliberate symbol that
announces Milan’s determination to be
seen a truly international city
Beautiful and Intelligent
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
          



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46

50
SALONE

MORE THAN AN IMPORTANT TRADE

FAIR, THE SALONE INTERNAZIONALE
DEL MOBILE IS A CULTURAL EVENT
WITH A RICH HISTORY, WHICH HAS
HAD AN IMPACT FAR BEYOND THE
BORDERS OF ITALY. THE BLUEPRINT
EDITORIAL TEAM LOOKS BACK AT THE
BEST OF A HALF CENTURY OF DESIGN
THAT THE FAIR HAS HELPED LAUNCH
ON THE WORLD, AND ASKS SOME OF
THE SENIOR FIGURES IN UK DESIGN
ABOUT THE IMPACT OF THE FAIR ON
THEIR OWN CREATIVE LIVES

FIVE
DECADES
OF
MILAN
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
 1960s
47

Left: the polypropylene

Kartell 4867 chair by Joe Zeev Aram
Colombo for Kartell Chairman and Founder, Aram Design
(1968) I first went to the Salone in 1964. I opened
my first shop in Chelsea that same year and
had started working with Gavina and Flos.
Both companies were showing at the fair and
as their sole UK representative, I was expected
to be there. The early years of the fair hold
many great memories for me. There was a real
sense of excitement in those days. For me, the
fair had three phases: the beginning, the
middle and the now.
The beginning I always refer to as the
heroic years. They were the years when
manufacturers weren’t shy of promoting
design, in its purest sense, without commercial
motive. You had young designers, like
Magistretti, Scarpa etc who were full of
creative ideas. They were young and there was
a real vibrancy to their work. Alongside them
you had companies, or rather, single
individuals at the head of companies who
understood these designers and their potential
and worked with them to create the designs
that we now take for granted. Companies like
Gavina, Flos, Zanotta, Cassina etc. It was the
beginning, not just of the fair. A bit like the
Bauhaus in the thirties.
Then came the middle years. Bigger
companies saw the success that these young,
smaller manufacturers were having at the fair
and jumped on the bandwagon. I remember
one year, 1969 I think it was, Gavina was so
appalled at the new ‘feel’ of the fair that he
refused to exhibit. He left all his furniture in
boxes and piled them up on his stand. A
pyramid of boxes. It was his statement against
a fair that was losing its sense of identity.
This year will be my 47th year at the fair.
I haven’t missed one since 1964. I keep going
Left: Up armchair and Above: Blow inflatable
back in the hope that I will find something.
ottoman from 1969, chair designed by d’Urbino,
de Pas and Lomazzi in The fair now is vastly different: it’s big,
designed by Gaetano
1967 for Zanotta international, organised. It is no longer about
Pesce for B&B Italia
promoting developments in design and
manufacturing. This is what I miss. Substance.
Substance from companies who see value in
developing an idea or product, not because it
will sell, but because it is good, and
worthwhile to explore.

Ω BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

48

50
SALONE

Left: Maralunga seating

system, designed by
Vico Magistretti in 1973
for Cassina

Below: Capitello chair

designed by Studio 65
in 1971 for Gufram

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

 1970s
49

Left: Parentesi lamp,

designed by Achille
Castiglioni and Pio Manzù
in 1971 for Flos

Left: AEO chair designed

by Archizoom Associati
and Paolo Deganello
in 1973 for Cassina

Left: Quaderna table

and bench, designed by
Superstudio in 1970
for Zanotta

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

 1980s
50

50
SALONE

Right: Tolomeo lamp,

designed by Michele
de Lucchi and Giancarlo
Fassina in 1986
for Artemide
Nigel Coates
Below: Thinking Man
Architect, Designer Chair, designed by Jasper
The Salone Internazionale del Mobile is the Morrison in 1986
Olympics of the furniture world. It makes and for Cappellini
breaks companies and designers. People who
live in Milan say that it also sustains the
whole city, and it’s the only time of the year
when it truly comes alive. Unlike the angle
taken by some journalists, the real fair is at
the Fiera, so anybody who hasn’t been there
can’t say they’ve been to the Salone. All the
razzmatazz in town, the Fuori Salone, has
become so big that it is hard to get attention
unless you throw tonnes of PR and money at
it. Big fashion brands fall over themselves to
get a slice of the action. But the real business
is at the Fiera, where I first showed in 1989
with the Gallo collection for Poltronova.
This year the fair includes the biannual
Euroluce where I’ll be showing new lighting
products with Slamp and AV Mazzega. Euroluce
really is the engine for Italian lighting
companies – it is the means to focus the
brand through the stand, the catalogue and of
course the products. I will also be showing
some furniture at Fratelli Boffi. The whole
experience is very intense; by the end of the
week everyone is exhausted, including me.
I go to Milan as much to see my design
mates from Italy and around the world as to
tune into the zeitgeist. There are usually a
couple of big parties on Friday and Saturday
where we can let our hair down and exchange
stories accumulated over the week. Last year
the Icelandic volcano meant that everyone was
panicking about getting home. One friend took
a taxi to Denmark, and another, a bus to
London. I thought, to hell with it, and went
back to Tuscany where I’d been before the fair.

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

52

50
SALONE

Tom Dixon
Designer, Entrepreneur
I first showed in Milan at Corso Como 10 with
Marc Newson and Kris Ruhs in 1991. The show
was called One Room. Since then, the fair has
transformed, it’s no longer the local furniture
fair dominated by the big Italian brands that I
remember. For me personally it becomes a bit
of a nightmare, as it is like a Rio carnival for
the industry. I see it as a good thing – it
means that design is becoming as interesting
to people as cooking, film or fashion. Now
that the big corporations are there, like
Swarovski, Lexus, Nokia, it becomes harder and
harder to stand out though, as there is so
much money spent – not much of it is
focussed on selling furniture anymore. We find
that we are constantly adapting and
evolving to stay ahead.
Some things at the fair never change –
the coffee in Milan is still the best in the
world, yet it is impossible to get a taxi when it
Above: Tawaraya boxing
rains. Milan during the fair redefines busy. For
ring designed by Masanori
Umeda in 1981 people visiting for the first time this is my
for Memphis advice: make sure that you have booked a
hotel a year in advance! Yet we keep going
Left: Bertrand console back because the Salone remains the single
designed by Massimo opportunity in the year to capture the whole
Iosa Ghini in 1987
of our industry’s attention, it’s an ideas
for Memphis
exchange and it’s a tradition.
This year we have partnered with
BlackBerry, in a stand alone space and are
incorporating a restaurant and tea shop called
Parlement, for people to rest and have British
afternoon tea – we will also be directly selling
to visitors so they have something to take
home as a souvenir. A ‘Please Exit Via The Gift
Shop’ sort of thing – and we also have a small
viewing theatre where we will screen content
that our scouts will capture from round the
TOM VACK

fair on a new top secret BlackBerry device.

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

54
Below: S-Chair, designed
by Tom Dixon in 1991
50 for Cappellini

Below Knotted Chair,

SALONE designed by Marcel
Wanders in 1996
for Cappellini

Tomoko Azumi
Designer
I first went to Milan in 1994 – the second year
of my MA at the RCA. I went there solely to
look for possible clients and I was lucky
because I found one, Lapalma, who is still my
client today. They were doing very nice wooden
and steel furniture and I thought, yes my
furniture would work well with their collection.
Seventeen years ago, it was a little simpler
to find out what the true character of a
company is.
It was just huge but in many ways that
was reassuring. If there are hundreds of
Below: May Day light,
companies, I thought, one of them has to designed by Kostantin
employ me! I began to understand the whole Grcic in 1999 for Flos
map of the furniture industry. I said to myself:
‘I have to seek out some shared philosophy and
aesthetics.’ So I had to analyse my work as
much as those of the manufacturer. It was a
puzzle: matching my work to a collection and a
collection to my work. Lapalma was making
dual function flexible furniture, rare in the
Italian market, and they employed designers
who I admired.
I stayed in the same little hotel for seven
years. When I did the Satellite in 1999 I had to
be there for a good couple of weeks – getting
in and setting up and taking down. I stayed
there for two weeks. I kept staying there until
quite recently. But now I can never get a bed,
Royal College of Art students always book it up.
The Salone Satellite is one of the best
showcases dedicated to young designers in the
world. I made good contacts then and some of
those meetings resulted in projects, not directly
but eventually. The Satellite was the beginning
of a few relationships. I met the international
press too. I’d met design journalists in the UK
but I’d never met Italians, Germans or the
French. Milan is a very, very important place for
meeting people.
Do I still seek out companies? Ha. No. Now
I let myself be found by certain people.

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

1990s
55

Left: Adelphi chair,

designed by John Denton,
Bill Corker and Barrie
Marshall in 1998 for Edra

Below: Soft Little Heavy

chair, designed by Ron
Arad in 1993 for Moroso

PHOTO: ALESSANDRO PADERNI

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

56

50
Right: Ripple Chair,
SALONE designed by Ron Arad
in 2005 for Moroso

Below: Chair One,

designed by Kostantin
Grcic in 2002 for Magis

RNI
ANDRO PADE
PHOTO: ALESS
Below: Surface Table,
designed by Terence
Woodgate and John
Barnard in 2008 for
Established & Sons

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

 2000s
57

Benjamin Hubert
Designer
I first went to Milan in 2007 with a design
company I was working with at the time and
to be honest, I found it overwhelming. I
Below: Favela chair,
designed by Fernando hadn’t realised that this huge area, or indeed
and Umberto Campana culture, in the design industry existed (as
in 2003 for Edra naive as that might sound now). But the
Salone at the fair with all its add-ons in Milan
was very extravagant – as all things were
Above: Thalya Chair,
designed by Patrick Jouin before the recession had hit in 2008.
in 2008 for Kartell For me, the Zona Tortona was the real hub
of the week when I first went with great
installations and projects. I remember vividly
the Swarovksi Crystal Palace but I also
remember the Moroso showroom and Studio
Job’s XL collection. These really were
different times.
We were staying in the nicest hotel in the
centre of the city, a long way from the cheaper
options we stay in now but that was the luxury
of working for someone else. The whole event
opened my eyes to the possibility of exploring
my own work and launching it on this
platform. This year will be our fifth year, I
think solid innovation and robust industrial
design will win through. The fanfare around
the more extreme stylistic showcases at the
Salone are shortlived in my eyes.

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

 58
BENJAMIN HUBERT HAS DESIGNED
PRODUCTS FOR NINE COMPANIES
AT THIS YEAR’S MILAN SALONE –
AN IMPRESSIVE ACHIEVEMENT FOR
SOMEONE LESS THAN FIVE YEARS
OUT OF UNIVERSITY. CAROLINE
ROUX TALKS TO THE PROLIFIC
DESIGNER WHO APPRECIATES THE
PRAGMATICS OF DESIGN
PORTRAIT BY IVAN JONES

INTERVIEW
BENJAMIN
HUBERT
IVAN JONES

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

 59
Hubert founded his
London-based studio one
year after graduating
from Loughborough

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

60
Below: Hubert’s favourite
piece being exhibited in
Milan is his Paddle task
light, which spins 360˚
Right: hand thrown clay
hugged in woven material
forms the Loom pendant
lights, designed for Zero
Right: the lightweight Among the twelve or thirteen new
Maritime chair employs products that British designer Benjamin
techniques more familiar Hubert will be launching in Milan this
to shipbuilding
April are a white pendant light made from
an expandable woven bedding material and
a big felty chair. There’s a laptop bag that
grows into an overnight bag and a lamp
that looks like a squashed car headlight.
The nine companies he’s working with are
spread around Europe – Denmark, Italy,
Holland, Sweden – and there’s one in Japan.
For two of them, he’s designed the stands
for the Milan Salone, too. ‘If you leave it to
other people, you don’t always get the
highest standards,’ he explains, ‘and I do
like to get everything right’.
Perhaps, in these cash-strapped, about-
to-be fee-paying times, Hubert’s fast-track
career path is worth thinking about. Unlike
many design students of the last few
decades who have ambled through seven
glorious years of further education
(Foundation, four-year BA, two-year MA),
Hubert managed to compress his studies
into just four. Leaving school with A-levels
in physics, maths, art and design, he opted
for an Industrial Design and Technology
course at Loughborough – no foundation
qualification required. Four years later, he
emerged with the sort of BA that, in his
words, ‘taught a good skill set’. After
sprucing up his industry knowledge in a
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
series of the most credible design
consultancies in the country – DCA,
Tangerine and Seymour Powell – which, he
says, ‘make you robust’, he struck out on
his own. ‘At consultancies, you don’t get
your hands dirty,’ says Hubert. ‘It’s all
injection moulded this and that. I wanted
to think more about materials and process.’
Exhibiting at New Designers in 2006,
after graduating, gave him his first taste of
the wider limits of the design world. A
subsequent visit to the Milan furniture fair
made him realise just how wide they could
be, and why he should think about setting
up a studio. ‘When I went to Superstudio
and saw those big brands in big spaces, I
realised I wanted to be there too.’ Now, at
26 years old, he employs one assistant, has
a steady stream of interns (two at a time) at
his studio in Highbury, north London, and
will have a further 12 products ready in
time for the London Design Festival in
September. He does, however, stress that
this current outpouring of work is actually
the product of significant time lag.
‘Although we are launching a number of
things, it’s important to stress we take each
project very seriously and some have been
three years in development,’ he says.
Hubert knew he wanted to be a
designer early on. ‘There weren’t any
definitives in art,’ he says. ‘I wanted
 61

boundaries, and to innovate. To make Above: the Pod chair is

things with a purpose and an end-use. Art Hubert’s latest work for
is fantastic but subjective and I like the the young Dutch
company De Vorm
objective. I chose design because it’s
pragmatic.’ The first thing that got him
going were visits to the Automotive Design
degree shows at the Royal College of Art,
and then he went to college and decided
that his love affair went beyond the skin-
deep. ‘I realised that I’m interested in our
connection to everyday objects, not just
the surface,’ he says. His 2006 degree show
project was an interactive lamp, with LEDs
that could be blown out like a candle and
won him the Corus Material Award at New
Designers. In 2010, he won the best new
product award at 100% Design for A Year
In The Making, a series of ten designs that
had gone into production that year with
six companies including a cork pendant
light called Float for Unique Copenhagen
and a desk lamp in concrete and ply for
Decode. Most recently, it was the Elle
Decoration International Young Designer
Award for the Brit.
Hubert is nothing if not prolific. He
spends 12 hours a day in his studio and
puts his success down to hard work. It’s
possible there is a fair amount of self-belief
going on, too. ‘I hounded some companies
and some eventually invited me in,’ he
says simply. When producers suddenly Ω
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
 62
IVAN JONES
decide to put one of his designs on hold, as
they are wont to do, he does his own
market research to prove its viability, gives
them an upbeat presentation of the results
and gets the process going again. But even
for Hubert, there are occasional
unassailable obstacles. ‘I went to Cologne
for a meeting with a really big brand that
had taken a lot of effort to set up. The first
question was “have you done upholstery”,
so that was the end of that,’ he recounts
resignedly.
His design heroes are Dieter Rams
(‘semantically, his things are very pure’)
and James Dyson (‘for his engineering –
that’s about purity too’). He likes the work
of Thomas Heatherwick because ‘he looks
at materials and treads that fine line
between innovation and being sued. I’d
love to pick his brains’. Strangely he has
never actually met Heatherwick, though
he’s been in the same room. One imagines
the unfailingly confident Hubert would
simply stride up to the star and start a
conversation, but perhaps he’s just too
politely English to consider that option.
Out of his many Milan pieces, Hubert
is most invested in a chair he has designed
for the Treviso-based company Casamania
called Maritime, and the aforementioned
felt chair for small Dutch outfit De Vorm.
‘I’d like these to get most attention,’ he
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
says. His favourite piece is his Paddle task
light ‘but my lighting has had lots of praise
already’. What thrills him is its totally fluid
360-degree ball joint, and it does have a
splendid motion, though its literalness – it
//THERE WEREN’T ANY
really is a paddle on a pole – might be a
little too literal for some. DEFINITIVES IN ART. I WANTED
Indeed if one were to seek out a BOUNDARIES AND TO INNOVATE.
defining characteristic of Hubert’s work,
‘literal’ would be a better adjective than TO MAKE THINGS WITH A
most. It is a reoccurring mark of his design. PURPOSE AND AN END-USE. ART
The Maritime chair uses shipbuilding
techniques – an exo-skeleton in steam-bent
IS FANTASTIC BUT SUBJECTIVE
timber with a thin ply shell that is as light ... I CHOSE DESIGN BECAUSE
as it is strong. It sits somewhere between IT’S PRAGMATIC.//
the contract and the domestic market, and
comes in a variety of colours from a
shocking maritime blue to battleship grey.
The felt chair is called Pod and is the
largest piece so far that the Swedish felt
pressing factory has succeeded in making.
With its overgrown shell – designed to offer
privacy in office ‘breakout’ areas – it is a
familiar form.
It is the future that looks most
intriguing for Hubert. He has had several
meetings with the Italian powerhouse
Magis, and in the incredibly capable hands
of its creative director Mr Eugenio Perazza,
it seems more than likely that Hubert will
produce something really special, less
familiar, less literal. While Hubert’s talent
and drive can’t be denied, his is certainly an
unfinished business (as well it should be at
26), and though his work will be
.
unavoidable in Milan or London this year,
there’s definitely a lot more to come. A big
show in Superstudio? It can’t be far off
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 64

THE
CLOUD
MASSIMILIANO
FUKSAS

THE FIRST BUILDING DESIGNED BY

FUKSAS IN HIS NATIVE ROME IS
NEARING COMPLETION. THIRTEEN YEARS
IN THE MAKING, THE CONGRESS CENTRE
JUXTAPOSES A BOMBASTIC INTERIOR
WITH A MUTED EXTERIOR THAT
RESPECTS THE URBAN CONTEXT.
PETER KELLY MEETS THE ARCHITECT TO
REPORT ON THE PROGRESS OF THIS
AND OTHER REMARKABLE PROJECTS
MORENO MAGGI

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011


It seems that just as Massimiliano Fuksas’
first building in his native city is reaching a
key stage of construction, the cultural tide
might be turning against him. A huge steel-
structured centre for exhibitions and
conferences, located in the politically
charged EUR district in the southeast of
Rome, the Congress Centre has an
extravagance of concept and form that is
typical of the projects commissioned under
the city’s previous mayor, Walter Veltroni.
The project is the result of a competition
win in 1998, and can be considered part of a
brief period of architectural commissions
in Rome that includes Odile Decq’s
MACRO gallery, Renzo Piano’s Parco Della
Musica and, most significantly, Zaha
Hadid’s MAXXI, which opened last year.
It is not just the replacement of
Veltroni with Gianni Alemanno in 2008 – a
right wing mayor with little sympathy for
modern architecture – that makes the
centre’s continued progress remarkable. It
also seems out of step with the mood of
architecture criticism in Italy. The MAXXI
is currently hosting an exhibition entitled
The Architecture You Like, curated by
Gizmo. The Milan-based architecture
research group has invited 18 Italian and
foreign architects, historians, critics, and
students to select a favourite building and
explain their reasons.
The display is notable for the number
of buildings with a social agenda: from the
Handmade School in Rudrapur, Bangladesh,
by Anna Heringer and Eike Roswag, to
Peter Barber’s Donnybrook Quarter housing
project in east London. Joseph Grima, the
new editorial director of Italy’s venerable
architecture magazine Domus, selected
Alejandro Aravena’s defiantly un-
demonstrative Elemental housing project
in Chile. He claims that the drive in recent
decades for extravagant buildings by
65
prominent architects is the outcome of a The rational exterior of
psychopathology resulting from the the 30m-high building
declining role of architecture in the integrates it with the
surrounding buildings
development of cities. Grima argues that
architects must relearn how to be a ‘service
to the community’.
For an architect such as Fuksas, who,
at 67, has built huge projects all over the
world, such pronouncements must be
disturbing. He has given the Congress
Centre the nickname ‘The Cloud’, and
discusses it, and his general architectural
approach, in a decidedly artistic fashion.
‘The problem is not to build, the problem is
to give an emotion to the people,’ he says.
This might seem an ambitious claim for
what is, fundamentally, a building created
for commercial purposes – it will
accommodate conferences, corporate
meetings, exhibitions and presentations –
that is located in Rome’s main business
Ω
district. It almost certainly wouldn’t pass
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
66
Grima’s test of social responsiblity nor
probably his questionable application of
psychological terminology to architecture.
What it does show is that Fuksas is able to
take on large-scale commercial projects,
while adding an expressiveness and
lightness of touch that elevates them above
their programme.
The building has a steel super-
structure: a simple shed that has been
constructed in two sections, a technique
that has more in common with bridge or
tunnel infrastructure projects. This 30m-
high, translucent box, opens up at each end
on to the immediate area and the city
beyond. The form pays tribute to the 1930s
rationalist architecture that is so
prominent in the EUR, in particular the
nearby Conference Centre designed by
Adalberto Libera. Fuksas’ building also
takes its orientation, in relation to the
main roads of the Via Colombo and Viale
Shakespeare, from Libera’s building.
Yet, unlike the monolithic size and
form of that building, Fuksas’ structure is
softened by the treatment of the exterior: it
is clad in strips of thick, clear glass, which,
when seen at an oblique angle, perfectly
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
Above: Fuksas considers reflect the Rome’s bright sun and clear blue
the Congress Centre’s sky. From certain angles, the reflections
form to be similar to the cause the building to almost disappear.
torso of a human body
Inside, the box leaves space for a public
Above Right: a model area that will be accessible to all, while
showing the ‘cloud’ underground there is a vast exhibition hall
auditorium suspended which can be subdivided with temporary
at three points partitions.
This subterranean area is the only part
Right: the section reveals
of the building to be made in concrete:
the enveloping structure
above ground it is pure glass and steel.
as a proscenium arch for
the dramatic interior Impressive though it is in clarity of its
structure and scale – it has a total area of
26,981 sq m and is supposedly large enough
to house ten MAXXIs – the outer shell
really acts as a proscenium arch to the
more theatrical work of architecture that
will be suspended within. It is Fuksas’
design for the ‘cloud’ structure that shows
the more expressive side of his
architecture. This complex structure –
Fuksas considers it an organic form, similar
to the torso of human body – is to be
suspended at three points, and will house
an auditorium and other meetings areas. It
will be clad in a translucent textile so that,
when the building is lit at night, it will
glow. Construction has started on this
sculptural element on site, and it is slowly
beginning to inhabit its cage.
The architect is aware of the danger
that this building could seem like from
another time. ‘I get a lot of people coming
to visit Rome saying that we were very
much inspired when we saw the first
sketch in 1998 or 2000. The fear was that
when you do a project like this, after 12
years, 13 years, it could be over.’ During
the years it has taken the building to pass
through Rome’s labyrinthine bureaucratic
and planning processes, the days of the
blobs by architects such as Future Systems,
Will Alsop or Peter Cook seem to have
been and gone. It does appear a prescient
move by Fuksas to house the giant ‘cloud’
within a more rational shape. Yet there is
more to the proposal than this: it is Fuksas’
attempt to reconcile the conflicted
architectural nature of his home city.
The location of the building is highly
significant. The EUR area was planned by
Mussolini in the 1930s, with the intention
of opening it in 1942 to celebrate 20 years
of Fascism in the country. The area offers a
large-scale image of how urban Italy might
have looked if the Fascist regime had not
 67

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

68

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

 69
Plan of the Congress
Centre; above ground the
structure is entirely steel
and glass

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

 70
MORENO MAGGI
fallen; wide streets on axial plans and
austere buildings of either Stile Littorio or
Rationalism. Fuksas’ Congress Centre is
almost next door to the Colosseo Quadrato
– originally known as the Palazzo della
Civiltà Italiana – a vast and imposing neo-
classical square. The Congress Centre, with
its combination of a rational super-
structure and a suspended, organic ‘cloud’
reconcile the geometry of rationalism with
the architecture of Francesco Borromini.
‘These two elements are typical of Rome,
my interest is in combining the two. This
is my hybrid,’ says Fuksas.
It is, in some ways, remarkable that it
has taken this long for Fuksas to build
something in the city. His main office is
located in the centre of Rome, in a 16th
Century building that houses around 50
of his employees. Yet the architect has
always been more prolific abroad than in
his home city. In France, particularly, he
won plaudits from critics in the mid-1980s
and established a close working
relationship with clients in both the
private and public sectors. Fuksas’ office in
Paris is incredibly productive. Most
recently – and indicative of his status in
that country – is his stacked-volume design
for the National Archives.
Though he describes the Congress
Centre, his first contribution to Rome’s
architecture, in purely architectural terms,
Fuksas is by no means an apolitical figure
in Italy. When the Rho-Pero Fair building
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
Above: construction of in Milan was completed in 2006 – the
the Cloud will be finished project that cemented his prominent
later this year, 13 years reputation in Italy, not least due to being
after being commissioned
completed within 26 months and on budget
– the architect refused to attend the
opening and meet Silvio Berlusconi. Last
year, Italian newspapers reported on an
incident at a restaurant in Rome in which
Fuksas became embroiled in a public fight
with Guido Bertolaso – a political ally of
Berlusconi who has been implicated in
accusations of hosting sex parties.
Following Fuksas’ loud prostestations,
calling the politician a ‘thief’ and ‘fascist’,
the situation reportedly descended into a
food fight, with the architect hurling
cheese at Bertolaso who was forced to hide
under a table.
Understandably, Fuksas is now
reticent about discussing Italian politics,
but still cannot hide his frustration. ‘I don’t
want to speak any more about politics in
Italy. It is very frustrating,’ he says. But he
can’t help adding: ‘the power of money is so
great that you don’t need politics between
you and people. We call this populism, but
it’s not true.’ This stand has had
implications upon Fuksas’ work as an
architect. He won a competition to design a
new home for the Italian Space Agency in
Rome, but the project has now been moved
elsewhere and given to another architect.
Fuksas blames ‘Berlusconi politics’.
The architect’s design for a vast airport
in Shenzhen – in the south of China’s
Guangdong province, immediately north of
Hong Kong – is also under construction.
Bearing some similarities to the Rho-Pera
project, with its long, undulating roof that
occasionally plunges into funnels
punctuating the interior, it is another
project that illustrates the architect’s love
of infrastructure. He boasts about the
construction process: it is being built in
three parts, largely by machine, which will
ultimately meet in the middle when the
main structure is completed later this year.
The fact that he can square his principles
to working in China perhaps says more
about his distaste for Berlusconi than
anything else. China is also an obvious
place for an architect of Fuksas’ style and
approach to go.
The EUR Congress Centre marks the
first stage of his work in Rome: he has two
other buildings in progress, including a
hotel and a large retail outlet for Benetton
located in the city’s centre. Yet it is also
indicative of the end of an era: a final
behemoth of a building for Italy’s capital,
being constructed just as architects of
Fuksas’ generation are not venerated for
their artistic aspirations, but criticised for
their acceptance of corporate patronage.
Yet, as his Shenzhen airport shows, such
buildings will still be required even if there
is not the taste or budget for them in the
.
west, for the moment. It is fortunate that
there are architects of his agility and
expressiveness to take them on
new- adj[noo, nyoo]
1. of a kind never before
existing.
2.recently made, brought
into being or acquired.
3. recently discovered.

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Ω PRODUCE PROFILE 73

ALIAS: After a decade operating as part of

the Poltrona Frau Group, furniture
manufacturer Alias is now a separate
entity once again. In March 2010,
northern Italy (albeit less than a
kilometre away from its former
facility). Visiting Alias’ new home, it
it is possible to sense a rediscovery

RESTATING the CEO of the company since 1993,

Renato Stauffacher, joined forces
with other investors to bring back
of the lightness and timelessness
with which one associates the
company, going back to one of its

THE FOUNDING independent control of the business.

The first collection that Alias has had
complete say over since leaving the
first pieces, the Spaghetti chair
designed by Giandomenico Belotti. At
this year’s Saloni, the company will

PRINCIPLES group will be launched at the Saloni

Enjoying fresh independence in a
in Milan this year. A renewed sense of
independence is already noticeable
with freedom to choose exactly which
projects to pursue. Since being
celebrate the role of Belotti’s chair in
establishing the company’s
reputation (and business model) by
constructing its stand at the Feria
from 1000 Spaghetti chairs. Alias has

new home, Alias is drawing on its
design heritage to stride forward.
Gian Luca Amadei reports on the
founded in 1979, Alias has always
distinguished itself with the clean
since gone on to work with engineers
and designers to investigate new
forms of its design pieces and in the
high level of technological research
production technologies and create
durable, stylish pieces that sit above
into production. the churn of market trends.

Italian furniture manufacturer’s
ambitious plans for Milan
The management buyback has
coincided with a move to new
premises, towards the end of 2010, in
Grumello del Monte near Bergamo in
Ω
Looking at the anchor products
in the new collection, the company is
obviously relishing its new found
freedom. It is collaborating with

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

74
Ω Jasper Morrison, which has proven an
ideal fit. Under the aegis of Poltrana
Frau this had not been possible,
because of a corporate decision to
relate certain designers to certain
brands. In Morrison’s case, this meant
working with Capellini. Now, the
British designer has designed a clever
new version of the Spaghetti chair –
called Tagliatelle – which is a
thoughtful reimagining of the
company’s roots: not quite a
reinvention but certainly a re-
statement of core principles.
Other works, such as a cupped,
low-slung easy chair by Pio Manzù,
Right: inspecting
the Dynamica stool
frames, designed
by Riccardo Blumer
and Matteo Borghi
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
have an even greater historical
resonance. Manzù, an Italian
industrial designer and son of the
Italian sculptor Giacomo Manzù, was
a graduate of the famous Ulm School
of Design in Germany. When working
for the car manufacturer Fiat, he
designed its first city car, the 127,
which sold seven million.
Alias is putting into production a
chair based on a prototype that
Manzù designed for the head offices
of Milan department store La
Rinascente in 1967. The piece was in
turn influenced by Manzù’s own
design for a car seat, created in 1965
Right: assemby
line for the
Dynamica stool,
which promotes
correct posture
for a prototype sports car by the now
defunct car brand Autobianchi. The
car, known as the Progetto 111, had
a fibreglass chassis (weighing just
870 kg). Manzù adapted an easy chair
from the car seat, widening it to
make it more comfortable and giving
it a five-arm base. It was developed
as a prototype but never reached the
production stage.
This chair, which emerged from
the typically Italian melting-pot of
family-owned industry and
interdisciplinary design, has been
brought back to life. ‘We found the
original prototype,’ says Andrea
Sanguineti, marketing manager at
Alias. ‘The base was lost and the
actual seat was damaged. We decided
to work on the ergonomics of the
seating and scanned the seat to
obtain a digital CAD version. It is
from there that we started to conduct
a study to rebuild the proportions.’
The chair will be available in leather,
followed in the near future by a
version in fabric. Alias will be also be
introducing a footstool to
complement the seating.
Here is a furniture company that
clearly has a soft spot for the high
performance engineering used in the
automobile industry. However, it is
not a company drenched in
testosterone. With this love of
enginerering also comes a passion for
poise and balance in the shape of its
furniture. In addition, the company
shows a sensitive side when it comes
to considering aspects such as
colours and textiles – they are
currently working with textile
consultant Giulio Ridolfo who has
also worked with Moroso, Vitra and
Kvadrat. According to Sanguineti, the
association with automobile design
has more to do with a shared
fundamental faith in technology
rather than any formal relationship in
their work. ‘In our process there is
always a high-tech approach to
technology. This allows for the
production of a design object that
carries an emotion,’ he says.
When presenting the Hydrochair
project at Alias, which will also be
debuted at Milan, the designer
Alberto Meda brought with him an
aluminium bike frame, to
demonstrate how light the chair
would be. Meda studied Mechanical
Engineering at the Politecnico of
Milan and established himself in the
furtuniture industry in the early-
Right: the
Rollingframe chair
by Alberto Meda
has an aluminium
die-cast base
1970s as a technical manager of
Kartell, overseeing the development
of furniture and plastic laboratory
equipment. In the 1980s, he moved
on to work as an industrial designer
for various companies such as Alfa
Romeo Auto, Phillips and Olivetti as
well as Vitra, and of course Alias.
‘Design for Alias is the result of a way
of thinking,’ he says.
His role in defining the
company’s area of expertise has been
hugely important. One of Alias’ most
important pieces, the Frame chair,
was designed by Meda and first
produced in 1994. With an extruded
aluminium structure and coloured
polyester mesh seat, the chair is light
75
both in weight and its effect on the
eye. The Hydrochair, composed of just
seven elements, is also light and easy
to move, and stackable too. Primarily
designed for the contract market, it is
likely, given the lightness and poise
of the piece, that it will permeate the
residential market as well.
Although the company’s clearly-
Ω
defined identity and market focus
was an asset amid Poltrona Frau’s
array of brands, it is now time for
Alias to build on its unique qualites
once more.
Left: to allow for
comfort, the
Dynamica seat and
base are moulded
in polyurethane
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
76 Top: a rare image
of the Progetto
111 prototype with
a lightweight
fibreglass chassis
Bottom: Pio
Manzù’s rational
interiors inspired
generations of car
designers

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

Left: Pio Manzù’s
easy chair in black
77
leather is faithful
to the Progetto
111 sports car

Left: the chair in

brown leather with
footstool designed
in collaboration
with Manzù’s son

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

78
Ω

Above: Alberto Meda

(far left) and son
Alessandro assess
the prototype of the
new Hydrochair

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

Below Left: the
Spaghetti chair
Below right: the
Tagliatelle chair by
79
(1979) inspired Morrison will be
Jasper Morrison’s presented at the
new design Salone in April

wood production.
The profiles are
cut by CNC
machines and
partly assembled by
hand. Each profile
is specifically
designed for Unifor

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

80

Left: the new

modular storage
system Loggia
by Jakob Timpe
for Alias

Right: The To’Taime

coatstand by
Philippe Starck can
be customised and
adapted
Below: the graphics
on its boxes show
the commitment
of Alias to good
design

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

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T: 020 7403 7114
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>>BOOK
VOITURE MINIMUM:
LE CORBUSIER AND
THE AUTOMOBILE
Antonio Amado
MIT Press, £36.95
Review by Trevor Baker
Trevor Baker In the 1920s and 1930s, Le
started his career Corbusier famously insisted that the
as a music buildings he designed should have a
journalist and has
car parked rakishly in front of them
since written about
art and design for
in publicity photos. His architecture
The Guardian was based on the same embrace of
functionality that he saw in the
Right: Le Corbusier factories of Henry Ford. ‘Machines for
claimed his car living’ inevitably needed to be
design predated accessorised by the ‘machines for
the VW Beetle
travelling’ that had, in some way,
Below: a inspired them. Many of these photos
minimalist vehicle are reproduced in this new account
for maximum of the architect’s own, never
functionality completed car design, the Voiture
Minimum. It’s fascinating to see
them now. Le Corbusier’s buildings
still look almost forbiddingly modern
with their clean white lines and
sharp, dismissive angles. The cars in
front of them, however, look like
museum pieces – tweedily Edwardian
and visibly descended from horse-
drawn carriages. They create the
opposite impression to the
modernity that was intended.
It is easy to imagine how Le
Corbusier must have loved cars and
yet been frustrated by their obvious
limitations. Architect and academic
Antonio Amado’s central project with
this readable and engrossing book is
to restore the car to what he
considers its rightful place in Le
Corbusier’s philosophy: at the centre.
As the author shows, the Swiss-born
master of functionalism was
obsessed by cars. His town planning
projects were based on the principal
that, ‘the car has killed the big city.
The car must save the big city’. The
elegant footprint of one of his most
famous buildings, the Villa Savoye,
was based on the turning circle of a
1920s automobile.
It must have seemed the logical
step for a designer of such
formidable confidence to create his
own, improved automobile. In 1936,
with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret, Le
Corbusier entered his Voiture
Minimum, ‘a minimalist vehicle for
maximum functionality’, into the
influential SIA car design
competition in Paris. Look at the
Voiture Minimum now and it’s a
world away from the Edwardian
throwbacks that had been popular a
decade before. It’s sleek and smooth,
unmistakably modern.
Throughout his life, Le Corbusier
claimed that he’d actually designed
the Voiture Minimum in 1928. This
would have made it genuinely
revolutionary. If the Voiture
Minimum had appeared in the 1920s
it would have appeared, to future
generations, like the grandfather of
the Volkswagen Beetle. Indeed, some
commentators have accepted Le
Corbusier’s claim and suggested that
Ferdinand Porsche and others were
influenced by it. Countering this
REVIEW
claim, Amado manages to prove, in
a gripping part of the book, that Le
Corbusier almost certainly designed
the Voiture Minimum in 1936. By
then the world had already been
introduced to Hans Ledwinka and
Paul Jaray’s revolutionary designs
for the Czech Tatra 77, and of
course, Porsche’s Beetle. The reason
that Corbusier gave for not sending
the idea to manufacturers in 1928
was that it was ‘too revolutionary’.
But, as the author points out, this
is the man who had already
suggested demolishing a large chunk
of Paris and replacing it with x-
shaped tower blocks.
The way we treat our cars is
often an insight into our chararcters
and just because Le Corbusier was
designing them doesn’t mean he is
different. The great architect often
comes across in this book as a Mr
Toad-like figure, a boy who never
quite grew up, prone to
exaggeration, who, after falling out
of love with cars, later became
obsessed with boats and aeroplanes.
There is something fanciful about his
attempts at car design. In his entry
for the 1936 competition, he airily
declared to the judges: ‘all
mechanical arrangements have been
left to the specialists’.
However, as Amado shows, the
‘mechanical arrangements’ were
unsurprisingly considered an
important part of car design. By
then, German designers, banned
from working on aeroplanes at the
time by the Treaty of Versailles, had
introduced the concept of
83
aerodynamics. The techniques and
expertise required to create the new
‘machines for travelling’ were
speeding away from the ‘machines
for living’ at an incredible rate.
It is a curious paradox of
Amado’s book that although the
publicity for it suggests that his aim
was to ‘restore [the Voiture
Minimum] from a footmark to the
main text’, he has done the reverse.
His research has proved that the
Minimum was actually less
significant than previously thought.
His final word on the car’s design
concludes ‘it can in no way be
thought of as an innovative or
revolutionary proposal’.
Instead, the significance of the
Voiture Minimum is what it says
about Le Corbusier. Many of the
letters that he wrote to
manufacturers show how desperate
he was to have the car made. Even if
his design wasn’t ‘innovative or
revolutionary’, it is clear that it was
as significant to him as anything
else he worked on. He seemed to be
envious of car design, viewing it as
the truly revolutionary form of the
early 20th Century.
In an endearing foreword
Amado, who’s had a successful career
as an architect and artist in his
native Spain, admits that he always
wanted to design cars: ‘I could not
think of any other profession that
was as interesting or attractive,’ he
says. Part of the charm of this book,
then, is that it is written by one
frustrated car designer-turned-
architect, about another.
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
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>>EXHIBITION
MUSEUMS IN THE 21ST
CENTURY: CONCEPTS,
PROJECTS, BUILDINGS
29 January-30 April
KMSKA Royal Museum of Fine Arts,
Antwerp
Review by Alison Killing
ALison Killing This exhibition is a retrospective of 29
is the founding well-known international museums
director of Killing built in the first decade of the 21st
Architects based
Century, focusing loosely on each
in Rotterdam
building’s relationship with its site. It
Right: KMSKA, the will be shown eventually at the new
oldest museum in Museum aan de Stroom (MAS) in
Antwerp, is being Antwerp, designed by Neutelings-
re-masterplanned Riedijk Architects, which opens in
May. MAS is key to the Belgian city’s
Below: the
ambitions for hosting high profile
Museum of the
Hellenic World in exhibitions that residents must
Athens by currently travel to Brussels, France or
Anamorphosis the Netherlands to see. It will also
bring together the collections of
several museums across the city. The
museum sits on the site of a 16th
Century trading house of the
Hanseatic League of cities, in the days
when Antwerp was at its peak as a
port. It aims to be very much of
Antwerp, with the city’s heritage as a
former key port providing a distinct
point from which to look outwards.
The building itself is part of the
regeneration of the docklands area,
an archetypal museum project for a
former industrial site in Europe.
The links in such projects between
context, architecture and curatorial
approach are a potentially rich topic,
arguably one of the most important
cultural issues of our time. This
exhibition chooses to explore a far
more superficial relationship between
a museum and its surroundings. The
buildings are grouped into four
themes: in the fabric of the city; the
solitaire, or discrete objects; within
the landscape; and finally extensions
to existing museums. Several of these
groupings are dubious, featuring
museums that clearly could happily sit
in another theme. Mostly however, it
is just banal. These categories could
easily be ascribed to any sort of
building and add very little to a
visitor’s understanding of approaches
to museum design.
The exhibits themselves are
beautiful, but the lack of variety in
presentation style forces a real
evenness. Each of the 29 projects is
presented in roughly the same way,
with a model, and three or four panels
of photographs, followed by a more
technical plan or section. The single
linear route through the museum,
combined with the large number of
projects makes the experience
relentless. Identical presentations
should allow comparisons, but the
curators have not seized this
opportunity. If the exhibition is
about the relationship between the
building and its context, where are
the large-scale plans, diagrams and
photographs of each museum and its
surroundings that describe this? In
fact, many of the museums are
presented entirely without context.
It is hard not to feel that the
exhibition would have been better
with fewer, carefully selected
museums and a more in-depth
treatment of each project.
Luckily, many of the buildings
are strong enough to overcome the
bland curation. Bernard Tschumi’s New
Acropolis Museum in Athens has
plenty to say about the relationship
between museum and city. The model
shows how it negotiates a delicate
site, hovering over a significant
archeological excavation, while
photographs illustrate its close
proximity to the Parthenon. Zaha
Hadid’s MAXXI is here too, snaking
through the former army barracks in
Rome. There’s UN Studio’s Mercedes-
IF THE EXHIBITION IS
ABOUT THE
RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN THE MUSEUM
AND ITS CONTEXT,
WHERE ARE THE
LARGE-SCALE PLANS?
85
Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Diller
Scofidio + Renfro’s Eyebeam in New
York and the redevelopment of Berlin’s
Museum Island. It’s a good overview
of the significant museums of the past
ten years but there is little historical
perspective to situate them within a
wider context.
There are some lesser known
projects included, which are welcome
discoveries. Gigon Guyer’s Kalkriese
Museum and Park in Germany speaks
eloquently of the way that a dialogue
can be created between a museum,
its site and its exhibits. The museum
commemorates the Battle of Varus in
the Teutoburg Forest, a Roman
defeat at the hands of a number of
German tribes in 9 AD. The landscape
itself is exhibited there: pavilions
emphasise certain views, or amplify
the sounds of the woodland. Paths
laid in stone show the route taken by
the Roman soldiers during the battle,
while wood chipping tracks through
the forest trace those of the tribes.
The museum is deeply bound up in
the place and the story is told simply
and compellingly by the few drawings
and photographs at the exhibition.
Plans for the KMSKA itself end
the exhibition, which will be closed
for refurbishment for eight years
after April. The plan is to build within
the courtyards and expand the floor
area substantially, in a move that
won’t be visible from outside. The
curators have avoided highlighting
any correlation between the content
of the exhibition and the building in
which it stands. Once again, it’s
presented in a beautiful model, but it
might as well have been sitting in the
museum foyer to inform visitors about
the forthcoming construction works.
It is a shame that the curators were
not able to do more to tell us about
how these moves relate to wider
trends in museum developments, or
about ways in which museums can
respond to their contexts and how the
new KMSKA or MAS plan to do so.
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
86
>>EXHIBITION
LAURIE ANDERSON,
TRISHA BROWN,
GORDON MATTA-CLARK:
PIONEERS OF THE
DOWNTOWN SCENE,
NEW YORK 1970s
3 March-22 May
Barbican Art Gallery, London
Review by Esme Fieldhouse
Right: Floor of the Whether it is warehouse parties or
Forest is one of four exhibitions in turbine halls, we’ve
installations to be become accustomed to an industrial
performed daily
backdrop. Architects are even referring
Below: the city to rugged factories for brand new
became the canvas: buildings – Caruso St John cites the
Trisha Brown’s Roof inspiration for Nottingham
Piece (1973) Contemporary as the artist-run spaces
of downtown New York. For the first
artists who sought to inhabit this
particular industrial zone, it was a
rather rougher situation and the art
created was inseparably entangled
with the brutal urban context. This
new exhibition gets stuck into those
feverish origins, focusing on musician-
performance artist Laurie Anderson,
choreographer Trisha Brown and artist
Gordon Matta-Clark.
The Pioneers moved into the
Manhattan district of SoHo in the late-
1960s, a decaying hinterland of New
York City, steeped in high crime and
unemployment. The large buildings,
abandoned by industry, proved perfect
hosts for performances and
exhibitions, while leaving enough
room to live too. This new notion of
loft living introduced a fresh
perspective: an all-encompassing
bird’s eye view of the city. The
experience of travelling between point
A and point B as part of an urban
lifestyle enriched the act of doing it,
rather than the ‘it’ as an end in itself.
The Barbican’s agenda is to show the
value placed on ideas and process over
COURTESY BROADWAY 1602, NEW YORK PHOTO: BABETTE MANGOLTE
BLUEPRINT MAY 2011
any finished product. This short period
marks a shift away from the elitism of
the arts: performance stood off the
stage, art strayed from the gallery.
Through different outdoor events,
Anderson, Brown and Matta-Clark each
activated redundant pieces of
infrastructure and invented new
landscapes, previously unused:
building façades, roof tops,
foundations, water towers. ‘Artists had
to create their own live-work situation,’
says curator Lydia Yee. ‘Like-minded
individuals across disciplines built a
community as they built an art scene’.
Matta-Clark set up the restaurant Food,
on Prince Street, partly to provide a
much-needed space to eat and
socialise. Here, he made the first of his
infamous building cuts – a process
Matta-Clark described as like a ‘dance
with a building’.
At the Barbican, the cross-
pollination of ideas is illustrated
through themes that weave around
the upper floor of the gallery:
Downtown New York, Drawing and
Performing, and Urban Interventions.
The rich mix of film and building
fragments is fluid and absorbing. Here
we find Anderson’s Institutional
Dream series, where the artist slept in
public places, such as Coney Island
beach, and recorded her dreams.
Brown’s meticulous choreography
scores on graph paper translate to
dancers’ movements within an
imaginary cube and could easily be
architectural drawings. However, the
magic of the exhibition, and indeed
the Downtown Scene, must lie with
the performances.
For the first time outside New
York, visitors to the Barbican can
RUNE HELLESTAD
experience Brown’s Walking on the
Wall (1971). Performers in harnesses,
rigged to tracks above, are held
perpendicular to the gallery walls and
casually walk along them, as if the
walls were the ground. This piece has
the curious affect of shifting the
viewer’s perspective into one looking
downwards from a height. Brown
experimented with several ‘equipment
pieces’, once describing a new one as
‘another fearless dance concert’.
There is an undeniable social
aspect to the work discussed here, one
only has to consider Anderson and
Matta-Clark’s involvement in
Anarchitecture, a group that met to
discuss, and ultimately exhibit,
‘metaphorical voids … leftover spaces‘
in the city. Matta-Clark extended these
discussions with his Reality
Properties: Fake Estates (1973),
entailing intimate surveys of ‘gutter
spaces’ purchased at city auctions. The
Barbican is keen to point out the
timeliness of an exhibition about
creativity flourishing during a
recession. It is unnecessary however,
to distract from an already intriguing
tale of a group of artists living and
working in dialogue, looking to the
streets for materials and ideas. They
unravelled the urban landscape and
blurred the boundary between
horizontal and vertical.
The sometimes awkward structure
of the Barbican works well to mimic
NYC blocks and allow a crucial aerial
view of performances in the lower
gallery. The Barbican seems to
consistently shy away from
conventionally curated exhibitions. It
is perhaps cautious of stiff London
competition, but with the most
astonishing events programme yet, it
puts its contemporaries to shame. The
events, including dinners designed by
artists, are essential to ‘bringing back
the spirit’, says Yee.
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Ecobuild Review W blueprintmagazine.co.uk

<< Roca
Roca was present at Ecobuild
2011, the world’s largest
event for sustainable design,
construction and the built
environment, at which it
showcased a range of design led,
ecologically sound products. Key
C.R. Laurence of
designs included W+W, Roca’s Europe
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designed to maximize space and Kingsway Business Park
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<<
range of eco-friendly brassware,
such as the new single-lever CR Laurence exhibited their full range of glass hardware and accessories at Ecobuild,
mixer, the Singles-Pro, were also which took place from 1st to 3rd March 2011 at ExCel, London. Visitors were able
displayed. The Singles-Pro saves to view a selection of CRL’s extensive product range; from their revolutionary Taper-
25% more water than standard Loc System to Shower Door Hardware to Laguna Sliding Door Systems. Taking pride
Roca Limited single-lever taps. of place was the Taper-Loc Dry Glaze System, which is 50% faster to install than
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>> forbo >> Armourcoat

Centre stage on Forbo Flooring Systems’ Armourcoat announced the addition
stand at this year’s Ecobuild will be of Ductal® to their world-renowned
Marmoleum, Forbo’s sustainable and product range at Ecobuild 2011.
biodegradable linoleum. Made from Developed by Lafarge, Ductal® Ultra-
97% natural raw materials, more than High Performance Concrete (UHPC)
37% of which have been recycled, possesses a unique combination of
Marmoleum has more independently- superior properties, including strength,
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flooring product in the world, making aesthetics. Stronger than natural
it the environmental product of choice stone, Ductal® is ideally suited to the
for many flooring specifiers. Already manufacture of lightweight decorative
available in an extensive choice of building façades and can be pigmented
colourways and patterns, Forbo will be to a wide range of colours. For
launching a new Marmoleum ‘Special sustainable construction, Ductal®
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industrial waste material on global Armourcoat Ltd
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Strata’s exclusive Hydrotect coating not only removes bacteria and dirt without
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BLUEPRINT May 2011

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Polyflor, has been individually assessed by BRE Global, achieving the highest
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<<
Invista’s Antron carpet fibre took part in the recent Surface Design Show held at
London’s Business Design Centre, exploring the theme of ‘colour in materials’ as part
of SCIN’s attendance at the event. Antron showcased Antron Lumena carpet fibre,
Antron Lumena carpet fibre with TruBlend technology and Antron Legacy yarns.
Antron also presented the 2011 Design Tool Kit, engaging with architects through a
series of mood boards and specially commissioned carpet samples that explore how
carpet can be used to mimic, contrast and reflect other surface materials.

>> forbo
The new Allura Luxury Vinyl Tile (LVT)
collection, developed by Forbo Flooring
System’s international design team,
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<<

Designers can view the collection and

find out about Forbo’s floor plan design
service at its London showroom in
Clerkenwell.
Designed by Simon Pengelly for Hitch Mylius, the dramatic hm83 seating system
has recently been specified by Dyer for the new City of Westminster College in
Forbo Flooring Systems Paddington Green. An exciting concept for public seating, the hm83 bench can
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www.forbo-flooring.co.uk and upholstered in CMHR foams, hm83 is built to withstand severe contract use.

>> kahrs
Embracing the trend for retro
design, Kährs has introduced
its new Linnea Dwell Collection
of wood floors. Offering a mix
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includes Oak, Walnut and Poplar
options in Dutch Mosaic, Industry iGuzzini
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iGuzzini
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T. 0 2 0 8 9 8 0 1 0 0 0 E . I N F O @ F L I G H T D E S I G N . C O . U K W . F L I G H T D E S I G N . C O . U K
92
To place products contact: Sophia Sahin T +44 (0)20 7936 6856 F +44 (0)20 7936 6813 E sophia.sahin@blueprintmagazine.co.uk W blueprintmagazine.co.uk
KI (UK) Ltd
Commonwealth House
148/153 High Holborn
London WC1V 6PJ
020 7404 7441
www.kieurope.com
>> The interiors group
The Interiors Group have
completed a project for Select
Model Agency at their new
offices in London’s West End.
The design included separate
male and female photo shoot
and meeting rooms, linked by a
catwalk to be used for informal
fashion shows and castings.
Dark wood, cream rubber, stone
and vibrant colours give the
offices a smart but cool feel
retail character, appropriate for
a leading model agency and its
complex organisational needs.
>> knightsbridge
Following the successful launch of
its Lucia fine dining chairs, Design
at Knightsbridge has announced
the introduction of side chairs
and upright armchairs in open and
fully-upholstered versions. The
Lucia range is built on simple,
stylish lines, which will complement
classical and contemporary
interiors in a range of hospitality
environments. All Lucia chairs can
be upholstered in either fabric or
hide to suit customer requirements.
Six standard show-wood finishes
are available - Cherry, Wenge,
Mahogany, Oak, Beech or Walnut
– supported by a polish matching
service.
BLUEPRINT May 2011
<< KI
The KI 800 Series is an innovative
business storage solution from KI. It is
a metric lateral storage range solution
which provides and saves space for
both personal and document storage.
It features individually locking drawers,
receding door units and matching
lockers, as well as improved cupboard
design and new hinges which ensure
unique dampened closure.
Available on short and consistent lead-
times and delivering a reduced carbon
footprint, KI 800 Series comes with a
25-year warranty, extendable to lifetime
and is Greenguard certified for LEED
accreditation.
<<
The Interiors Group
020 7495 1885
www.interiorsgroup.co.uk
<<
Design at Knightsbridge
Thornton Road
Bradford, West Yorks
BD1 2JT
01274 731900
www.design-at-knightsbridge.co.uk
Milliken Contract
01942 612888
www.millikencontract.co.uk
Milliken contract
<<
Obscura and Edit are the latest additions to the Consequence collection of textured
carpet by Milliken Contract, joining the established Upshot and Sequel designs. With
its soft shape and skeletal pattern, Edit reveals a beautiful striated texture, and
Obscura’s shadows bring vintage luxury to the floor. The striking texture and design
of Luxury Textured Loop Pile carpet tiles is created though Milliken’s ConvergenceTM
technology, which fuses texture with digital colour placement. Certified carbon
neutral, Obscura and Edit feature 85% recycled content, and ComfortPlus2®
polyurethane cushioning provides comfort and reduces sound by up to 36dB.
NCS Colour Centre
71 Ancastle Green
Henley on Thames
Oxfordshire RG9 1TS
01491 411717
www.ncscolour.co.uk
NCS colour
NCS Colour has extensive knowledge of traditional pigments, colour mapping of
environments, and the suitability of colours for buildings. The NCS Exterior collection
has been created with this knowledge. Most of the 252 matt façade colours can be
produced from inexpensive, sustainable and environmentally friendly pigments. Light
reflectance values (LRV) are included for decisions regarding heat absorption of
surfaces, while visual lightness values are given for making creative judgments. The
fanbook includes 70 low sheen colours for trim. The collection is presented in a sturdy
slip case with an essential Exterior Design Guide.
Parapan
Thistle Way
Gildersome Spur
Wakefield Road
Leeds LS27 7JZ
0113 201 2240
www.parapan.co.uk
Parapan
High gloss acrylic Parapan® is increasingly being specified for innovative design
projects, and was recently used at the Scottish University Centre for Excellence
in Computer Games Education at the University of Abertay, Dundee. Parapan®
was used in a sculptural form that connects all the spaces together, and the
black high gloss helps to reflect light and energy, the key media used by
computer games. Parapan® is available in 23 colours, can be cut to any size and
thermoformed to create any radius of curve.
 | www.fowlerco.co.uk | 01273 423111 | ben@brighton.co.uk |

Bespoke murals
Dramatic prints
Exclusive blinds

We give you unique

access to some of the
most exciting imagery
around and create
ebsite
high quality bespoke
New W nched interior graphics to
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Now L
Explore our website at
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Fowler & Co. designed and made this striking staircase for an
elegant Edwardian mansion apartment.
The stair strings are laser cut from 12mm thick steel to support
solid Native Oaks treads. A lighting channel runs up the edges of
the stairs to light the lobby below. The staircase hangs sweetly in
Perroquet Rouge, water & bodycolour on vellum
the space, with it's glass balustrade. by George Dionysus Ehret, 1744.

COTTAGE CRAFT SPIRALS

Specialist designers and manufacturers of high quality, hand built, bespoke

spiral, helical, straight and combination stairs in cast aluminium and timber
Cottage Craft Spirals • T: 01663 750716 • sales@castspiralstairs.com • www.castspiralstairs.com
Tilleys London Castings • T: 020 8341 5975 • tilleyslondon@btconnect.com • www.tilleyslondoncastings.co.uk

ADVERTISE HERE
Contact: Ade Rufus T: +44 (0)20 7936 6840
E: aderotimi.rufus@worldmarketintelligence.com
94
To place products contact: Sophia Sahin T +44 (0)20 7936 6856 F +44 (0)20 7936 6813 E sophia.sahin@blueprintmagazine.co.uk W blueprintmagazine.co.uk
Zumtobel
020 8589 1800
retail@zumtobel.com
>> connection
Juice, designed by Paul
Brooks for Connection, is
a truly versatile café chair
with excellent environmental
credentials. Its tub shell is
made of polyurethane and the
chair itself is 100% recyclable.
The chair is suitable for indoor
and outdoor use, and can be
stacked for an easy storage
option. Customers can choose
between a chrome or silver
wire sled frame, and a four leg
base, and the tub shell itself
can be produced in different
colours. Connection offers
single or dual colours in white,
lime, stone and graphite.
>> strata tiles
Strata Tiles strive to be at the
forefront of innovative design.
A kite shaped tile, inspired by
the Ottoman Empire? We’ve
got it. A self-cleaning tile that
cleans the air we breathe?
We supply it. But sometimes
you will find yourself seeking
eternal style, a true classic.
Proudly presenting Chromcrete,
a compact collection of fine
porcelain tiles that promise to
provide exactly what you need
for heavy traffic, residential
and retail solutions. Available
in a neutral palette of our most
popular tones, from pale beige
to pitch black, Chromcrete will
enhance and complement your
surroundings.
BLUEPRINT May 2011
<< Zumtobel
With the Iyon LED spotlight
range, Zumtobel is breaking
new ground in the area
of efficient high-quality
illumination of retail areas.
The spotlight’s sophisticated
design accommodates a
unique lens/reflector system
that allows for high-precision,
uniform accent lighting with
a variety of beam patterns.
With its excellent colour
rendition properties, high-
power LED modules and high
energy efficiency, Iyon is a
perfect tool for lighting and
presenting goods in shops
and showrooms. The Iyon
spotlight range is available in
two design sizes for various
wattages in Stable White and
Tunable White and will be
presented at EuroShop for the
first time.
<<
Connection
Dogley Mills
Penistone Road
Fenay Bridge
Huddersfield HD8 0LE
www.connection.uk.com
sales@connection.uk.com
<<
Strata Tiles
01908 271688
www.maine.co.uk
Polyrey
Langley Place
99 Langley Road
Watford, Herts., WD17 4AU
United Kingdom
01923 202700
polyrey.uk@polyrey.com
www.polyrey.com
polyrey
<<
Designer Paul Kelley has taken Polyrey’s Banian Noirci woodgrain laminate from the
Origine Premier collection and created a contemporary storage cabinet that exudes
style and simplicity. With its deep black and gently ridged matt surface, Banian
Noirci creates a single block of intense colour that, upon closer inspection, appears
to be timber. Flashes of brushed aluminium laminate punctuate the piece with
texture and colour. Polyrey’s Origine collection offers forty-one wood-alternative
laminates and has been a designer’s favourite since its launch last year.
MAINE
01908 271688
www.maine.co.uk
maine
Furniture consultants Operandum specified Maine Storage & Filing for Belron
International’s new HQ. Belron selected lateral files and cupboards from Maine’s
innovative and contemporary Mainepure range. Mainedesign colour glass tops were
matched to Belron’s interior colours. The Mainepure range is streamlined with a
flush front and invisible handle, which also acts as a label holder.
Mykon Systems
5 Stukeley Business Centre
Blackstone Road
Huntingdon
Cambridgeshire PE29 6EF
01480 415070
sales@mykon-systems.com
www.mykon-systems.com
Mykon Systems
Light is vital not only in its ability to transform space but also in the different
appearances and contrasts it can produce. Using this philosophy, Mykon now
manufacture panels, sliding doors, internal hinged doors, flooring, ceiling tiles and
bespoke furniture. Mykon B-Clear panels provide an individual and sophisticated
alternative in architectural sandwich panels. A stunning fish eye effect is achieved
by bonding an aluminium honeycomb core between glass or polycarbonate skins.
These lightweight but strong panels have many applications including partitions,
screens, doors, ceilings and floors.
 nora flooring systems are the world’s largest manufacturer of rubber
floor coverings and with over 60 years of research & development, are specialists
in commercial sector. Product characteristics include durability, easy cleaning, high
slip resistance, excellent walking comfort and excellent sound absorption properties.
BESPOKE SOLID ROSEWOOD TABLES The Environmental Accolades of nora rubber floorcoverings are unsurpassed,
the products are PVC-free and, in addition to high quality natural materials,
contribute positively to the environment with low toxicity and low VOC content. With
13 Stratford Road, Kensington, London W8 6RF certificates such as BRE ‘A’ ratings and Blue Angel, be eco conscience with nora.
Tel: 07771 861939 nora flooring systems UK Ltd, 4-5 Allerton Road, Rugby CV23 0PA
pære dansk www.paeredansk.com T: 01788 513 160 F: 01788 552812 W: www.nora.com

LOUIS F RASER

bronze & pewter door hardware

www.louisfraser.co.uk
free brochure 0845 003 7522
96
To place products contact: Sophia Sahin T +44 (0)20 7936 6856 F +44 (0)20 7936 6813 E sophia.sahin@blueprintmagazine.co.uk W blueprintmagazine.co.uk
Hansgrohe
01372 465 655
www.hansgrohe.co.uk
>> Paviom
Paviom has been awarded
the coveted Red Dot Design
Award for its signature
Lofoot range of exterior
lights, which are designed
for building perimeters
and public spaces. With its
distinctive approach, Lofoot
architectural luminaires achieve
original design in terms of
aesthetics, performance and
environmental credentials.
The unique Lofoot lighting
modules offer a distinctive
‘bud-like’ aesthetic which
creates a smooth, flowing form CIB
to enhance exterior landscapes. Riversway
All Lofoot modules provide an Guildford Road, Leatherhead Bridge
energy efficient and low carbon Leatherhead
Surrey, KT22 9AD
footprint lighting solution that
01293 804688
is 98% recyclable.
www.paviom.com
>> allermuir
This adaptable design adds a desirable,
compact, square armchair with
accompanying two seat sofa and coffee
tables to the collection. Fifty Series,
designed and developed by Jon Crawford
in conjunction with Allermuir, is an
ideal range for soft seating and meeting
environments from reception areas to
coffee bars, hotel foyers and lounges.
Poised on elegant swayed Steel legs and
with a low profile to the arms and body
of the upholstered pieces, superb comfort
is provided and is enhanced y the raised
backrest cushion. The retrospective design
and stunning attention to detail makes Fifty
Series a versatile product. Its combination
of comfort and compact footprint lends
it to a diverse range of applications both
in the corporate and leisure markets. For
further information relating to Fifty Series
and other ranges in the Allermuir collection
please contact the Marketing team.
BLUEPRINT May 2011
<< HANSGROHE
Axor Citterio M has been unmistakably
designed by the precise hand of
Italian designer and architect Antonio
Citterio, whose design language is
highly sophisticated and expertly
constructed down to the finest
details, and harmoniously links soft
curves with flat surfaces. Axor Citterio
M represents urban aesthetics and
is modern yet timeless. Three new
3-hole wash basin mixers, two 4-hole
bath mixers and a shut-off valve
all incorporate this unmistakable
design and can therefore be perfectly
combined with all the existing
products in the collection. Eye-
catching visual features include new
star-shaped handles with precise
finishes and soft, ergonomically-
shaped curves on the undersides.
Allermuir
01254 915669
sales@allermuir.com
Morgan
Clovelly Road
Southbourne
Hampshire
PO10 8PQ
Morgan
<<
The City collection is a contemporary and stylish product designed by Morgan Studio.
Lean and quick ecological production methods achieve a product that is modern
but also good value and quick to deliver. The City collection consists of a lounge
chair and an occasional chair, which is also available on a swivel base. All designs
are exclusive to Morgan and are made with care in their own factory in Hampshire
by a team of craftsmen. Morgan has full certification under the Furniture Industry
Sustainability Programme and has achieved ISO14001 for Environmental Systems.
VosLed
0203 155 3066
www.vosled.com
vosled
<<
Vos Kristall is a chandelier brand which is re-defining the nature of crystal
chandeliers. The company collaborates closely with architects, interior designers
and light planners in order to translate designs into decorative bespoke lighting
solutions. The company’s Vos Fibre Optic range is a collection of bespoke chandeliers,
curtains, art sculptures and wall coverings, which combine fibre optics with natural
crystals or treated fibre optics in order to create optical forms within fibres. This
range provides a breathtaking new concept in lighting design.
Miele Company Limited
Fairacres, Marcham Road
Abingdon
OX14 1TW
0845 365 0555
www.miele.co.uk
Miele
<<
Homeowners can now enjoy the ultimate in kitchen design co-ordination with
Miele’s Design Worlds for appliances. Stainless steel has long reigned as the
appliance colour of choice, however, those opting for a dramatically chic design
statement can now delight in ICE, Brilliant White Plus and Black coloured
appliances. ICE offers an understated design in a cool and contemporary metallic
hue. The smoked glass doors create a clouded and simple effect whilst the beautiful
chrome handles and trim ensure the homeowner’s kitchen is perfectly mirrored in
functionality, quality and design.
Contact: Ade Rufus T +44 (0)20 7936 6840 E aderotimi.rufus@worldmarketintelligence.com
SPECIALIST INDUSTRY: FLOORING 97
1 2 3

4 5
1 POLYFLOR
www.polyflor.com T. +44 (0)161 767 1111

2 MILLIKEN
www.millikencontract.co.uk T. +44 (0)1942 612888

3 EDEL TELENZO CARPETS

www.edeltelenzocarpets.co.uk T. +44 (0)1422 374417

4 KARHRS
www.kahrs.co.uk T. +44 (0)23 9245 3045

5 nora® flooring systems UK Ltd

www.nora.com T. +44 (0)1788 513 160

6 WILTON CARPETS
www.wiltoncarpets.com T. +44 (0)1722 746000

7 JUNCKERS
www.junckers.co.uk T. +44 (0)1376 534 700

8 VORWERK
www.vorwerkcarpets.co.uk T. +44 (0)20 7096 5090

6 7 8

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

98

MAN AND MACHINE

TOM ROWE
This illustration was created for the fourth edition of London-based graphic art and
illustration publication NoBrow. Originally produced as a lithographic print in three
colours, Rowe has revisited the piece to create a complex five-colour silkscreen
print in time for the Pick Me Up: Contemporary Graphic Art Fair at Somerset House
in March. The illustrator bases his futuristic, mechanical marvels around his
reaction to obsolescence and how quickly technology is replaced by a slightly
improved version of itself. For years, Rowe has been collecting technological
journals, ‘how-to’ books and images of anything electrical or mechanical. Most of
these come from Bookbarn, the UK’s largest secondhand bookstore in his native
Somerset. Rowe pens his compositions in Illustrator before separating the colours
for screen printing. Influences include vintage Tomorrow’s World journals, Terry
Gilliam, Steamboy by Katsuhiro Otomo, Marshall Mcluhan, Jello Biafra and of
course, Heath Robinson. www.tweedtom.com

BLUEPRINT MAY 2011

 hm77
design Kazuko Okamoto

one of a broad and versatile

range of contemporary seating
designs for corporate, public and
residential projects. To view the
complete Hitch Mylius collection,
visit our website or contact us on

T +44(0)20 8443 2616

77
E info@hitchmylius.co.uk
www.hitchmylius.co.uk
Move010. Luciano Pagani, Angelo Perversi

Photo Mario Carrieri

Ergonom Ltd
Whittington House
19-30 Alfred Place
London WC1E 7EA
tel. + 44 (0) 20 7323 2325
fax + 44 (0) 20 7323 2032
e-mail: enquiry@ergonom.com
www.ergonom.com