31 March 2010

More than Magis

â€¨A new partnership between Italian design laboratory Magis and Australia's own Corporate Culture celebrates the diversity and uniqueness of this European brand.

Based in Italy near Venice, Magis is more than just a design brand – it’s a culture, of diversity, exploration, and investigation.

“Magis has always put a lot of research and development (R&D) into discovering new materials,” says Magis’s Export Manager, Alberto Perazza.

“For example, Magis was the first company to use the air moulding technique to produce a chair,” says Perazza of Jasper Morrison’s ‘Air’ Chair (1999).

The other interesting thing about Magis is that it is a factory-free organisation, outsourcing the manufacture of its products to skilled local contractors.

“We use different production partners according to their specific knowledge of materials and techniques.” This could be anything from injection moulding and rotational moulding, to dye-cast aluminium, and pressed and bent metals.

Working with an impressive list of renowned designers – Marcel Wanders, Konstantin Grcic and Tom Dixon to name a few, Magis produces products across home, residential, contract and children.

If this isn’t enough to set the head spinning, then perhaps their plans for Salone del Mobile Milan 2010 will get your attention.

Bringing out eight to 10 products every year, Magis uses Milan as an opportunity to refine the technical aspects of its products – “It is part of Magis’s R&D cycle”.

“This year we’re presenting a collaboration with Marcel Wanders, with new chairs which are very much in the design and spirit of his brand. It will be an interesting association, that will be presented at prototype stage at Milan.”

In addition to this will be new designs from Dixon (a chair, Perazza hints), Grcic and Morrison.

But most exciting of all is a completely new collaboration between Magis and Thomas Heatherwick who has designed ‘SPUN’, a seat which whirls around while you sit... and the fruits of this labour you’ll be seeing in the month to come.'¨

Magis are now available through Corporate Culture.