A visit to the Spazio Rossana Orlandi is a welcome and refreshing reprieve from the Milan madness. Alice Blackwood stops by on her last day in the furniture fair city.
April 30th, 2012
The Spazio Rossana Orlandi opened in 2002 in a former tie factory – although to look at it today, ties are the very last thing that come to mind.
The Spazio is a rabbit warren of rooms and multi-levels that are unlocked by the viewer, almost by accident. Stumbling upstairs, rounding corners, accidentally wandering down into the bowels of the building – these are all acceptable forms of discovery at the Spazio.
2 years ago it was talked about as a secret, wonderful, magical destination – today it still is, but the word has obviously caught on, because the Spazio was teeming with visitors on the Friday of the fair.
Every room is a highlight in itself, so here we capture just a handful of some of the beautiful things found…
Damien Langlois-Meurinne for Sé showed ’The Only One’ tables with lacquered base and polished fraké wood top.
’The Only One’ tables from Sé
Also on show was the ‘Arper’ lounge chair and footrest with texturally rich upholstery by Jaime Hayon.
Arper’ lounge chair
The dappled courtyard – jam-packed with crowds of people happily chatting and sharing coffee – was hung with Bocci’s 38 series chandelier planters – glass-blown lights that appeared like mini terrariums. These lights have proven to be a popular product from the fair this year (judging by the online coverage and blogger re-posts they’ve received in the lead-up and post-Milan).
Bocci’s 38 series chandelier planters
Very fetching was the range of paper accessories from SIWA…
From SIWA
And right next door was a treasure-trove of a room filled with titanium cups from SUSgallery.
From SUSgallery
The glinting metallic hues of these vessels was riveting, each cup finished in a very tactile and distinctive surface texture produced through titanium crystallisation. These varied from ‘mirror’ (a dazzling variety of reflections), ‘matte’ (reminiscent of a pale shade of Japanese ink), ‘sepia’ (containing the lasting impression of a rich brown hue), ‘crystal’ (where light is condensed in crystallisation – a source of brightness in itself), and ‘coloured series’ (which sparkles with an innate shade and hue – like the surface of a bubble).
From SUSgallery
Like large, over-blown bubbles, Nika Zupanc’s aptly named ‘Bubble’ lamps played with the height of his show-space, and hung like ripe fruit above a set of table and chairs. (You may also recognise Nika’s work from Moooi – his 5 O’Clock chair was shown by Moooi in Milan last year).
Nika Zupanc’s ‘Bubble’ lamps
Perhaps the most memorable of all was the Diversity collection by Nacho Carbonell, tucked away in a cellar-like space, at the bottom of a set of stairs.
The shadowy, dank space served to highlight the haunting forms of these cave-like desk spaces with connecting chairs.
Each was finished in a distinctly textural material –broken glass, nails, gravel and more.
It was the most uninviting of spaces, and yet the most riveting…
Diversity collection by Nacho Carbonell
Rossana Orlandi
rossanaorlandi.com
A searchable and comprehensive guide for specifying leading products and their suppliers
Keep up to date with the latest and greatest from our industry BFF's!
Join us behind the scenes with V-ZUG’s in-house design team, and discover how this Swiss boutique kitchen manufacturer balances art, science and history to create its pioneering Excellence line.
The workplace has changed – and it will continue to evolve. With dynamism at the heart of clients’ requirements, architects and designers at leading practices such as Elenberg Fraser are using and recommending Herman Miller’s OE1 products for the future workplace.
Bidding farewell to mundane and uninspired office spaces, colour has transformed our workplaces into layered and engaging environments. So we sit down with Karina Simpson, Hot Black’s Workplace Lead, to talk about the influence colour has on the workspace landscape through the prism of Herman Miller’s progressive colour philosophy.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. The University of Sydney’s third Festival of Urbanism will investigate what can be done to help ease the pressure on Sydney.
The 2020 INDE.Awards shortlist for The Influencer shows a trend toward design intelligence that considers place, context and the environment
Designed by Architectus, St Andrew’s College Centennial Chapel is part of a new generation of civic buildings emerging from the earthquake-damaged Christchurch. It replaces its arts and crafts predecessor, but thanks to some careful salvage and reuse, it wonderfully translates the principles of old religious dogmas into future-forward physical spaces.
The internet never sleeps! Here's the stuff you might have missed
From innovative architectural material solutions, to colourful works seeking solutions for the future, and playful metaphors for the issues of today. We deep dive into the creatives starting new conversations around sustainability.
The workplace has changed – and it will continue to evolve. With dynamism at the heart of clients’ requirements, architects and designers at leading practices such as Elenberg Fraser are using and recommending Herman Miller’s OE1 products for the future workplace.
A Japanese restaurant experience like no other: Kelly Ross has delved into Japanese folklore to respond to the incredible cuisine of hatted chef Nobuyuki Ura.
That’s it. It’s a no-brainer. Move to central Melbourne and rent at LIV Munro where the apartments are beautifully conceived and the amenities are beyond outstanding. Build-to-rent is making waves and, through excellent design, the lifestyle of this new way of living is elevated to another dimension.