Designer Marcel Wanders: New Works at Milan Design Week

Marcel Wanders is one of the most creative and prolific designers working today, creating new furniture, products and architectural designs for clients around the world. Picture courtesy of Marcel Wanders.

Among the world’s top designers who gathered at this year’s Milan Design Week, Dutch superstar Marcel Wanders’ work was the most ubiquitous with new pieces at Moooi, Baccarat, Magis, Barovier&Toso and Very Wood, Jeanne-Marie Cilento writes. Additional reporting by Antonio Visconti

RISING resplendent in a black suit above a small Italian Vespa, Marcel Wanders tall frame could be seen zipping from one event to another during the Salone del Mobile. Wanders needed a quick and easy way to get around town as he had so many shows across the city.

The designer’s signature black and white look was completed by his chunky necklace and new lime-green and orange suede Nike runners. The designer’s work has a unique aesthetic that is full of fantasy and poetry and runs counter to the prevalence of industrial minimalism. It has been a busy 12 months for the Amsterdam-based Wanders. Apart from new designs for a range of companies worldwide, his work is currently being celebrated at a big retrospective at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Wanders designs are also held in collections at MoMA in New York, and London’s V&A Museum.

The designer spoke to DAM in the chiaroscuro light of the enormous Moooi Unexpected Welcome show held in a cavernous space in Milan’s Zona Tortona design district. The vast exhibition was dominated by colossal architectural images by Italian photographer Massimo Listri. The new works for Moooi ~  (mooi meaning beautiful in Dutch) ~ were presented in open rooms under the giant images of Italian Baroque interiors.

As art director and co-founder of Moooi, Wanders’ wants the company’s designs to be treasured and to last: future antiques not disposable pieces that are made to be discarded. “In a world which is dominated by the new, we like to see our works in the context of eternity. Massimo Listri is like an ambassador of this eternal heritage,” explains Wanders.

Listri’s extraordinarily rich and still interior images create dramatic backdrops for Moooi’s new designs. The photographer is passionate about atmosphere and perspective and is inspired by painters such as Piero della Francesca and Vermeer. “My photography is an expression of tranquillity in a chaotic world, bringing perspective and equilibrium to the viewer’s soul,” says Listri.

Marcel Wanders most atmospheric installation during Milan Design Week was the Delft Blue Tattooed Hands for the UNTOLD exhibition curated by Rosanna Orlandi and commissioned by the fashion house Vionnet at the historic Bagatti Valsechi Museum. Created from fine ceramic, the elegant white and blue hands were hauntingly accompanied by Wanders’ film Fragile Fingers on a Grand Piano played by renowned Dutch pianist Iris Hond.  

Another evocative show created by Wanders was for the Venetian glass design house Barovier & Toso from Murano. The exhibition was located at Fuorisalone in the Brera, held in the spectacular courtyard of the San Sempliciano cathedral. Called Light E-Motion, the artistic installation by Wanders aimed to surprise the viewer and challenge the laws of physics through the movement of glass chandeliers reconfigured to have a human aspect.

Again working in the field of glass, Wanders created ninety-nine limited edition vases for the New Antique Collection for famous French house Baccarat. The two new designs revisit the celebrated Médici vase, combining a rather sumptuous classical form but with a contemporary, geometric look in clear or dark crystal.

Wanders also designed a cartoony, Pop Art piece for Gufram, an Italian furniture design house in Piedmont known for creating sculptural and conceptual art pieces. Called Hortensia, the bright-blue flowered island seat is surreal and designed as a “soft sculpture” in polyurethane foam with a gooey, shiny finish. Gufram describes the piece not as a seat but as a “territory of relaxation for one or more people”.

Marcel Wanders designed three new chairs for Italian design company Magis, including two new versions of Cyborg, the masculine sci-fi Lord Cyborg with a high back the so-called Lady Cyborg which is designed to be lighter and more elegant. The Troy chair is also represented covered in a new range of textiles, metal, leather and wood.

The designer also began a new collaboration with the Very Wood company, creating two new chairs. The linear Century Chair with subtle historical touches and a new innovation where you can change the back of the chair using different material in wood, ceramic or bronze. The other Loop Chair is more dynamic and resembles arches drawn through the air.

New pieces from Moooi’s collection launched this year in Milan include many designs by Wanders plus pieces by Studio Job who have offices in Antwerp and Amsterdam, Hong Kong-based Danny Fang, Swiss studio ZMIK, Indonesian designer Alvin Tjitrowirjo based in Jakarta along with Dutch designers Bertjan Pot, Joost van Bleiswijk & Kiki van Eijk and Scholten & Baijings.

Wanders’ designs include the new Love collection with oversized chairs that are round, soft and embracing ~ and big enough for two people to curl up in together. Covered in a Wanders-designed white, fluffy textile, the large-scale chairs and sofas look very tempting places to sink into. The Nest chair is also plump and inviting with big, colourful cushions that spill over a streamlined, steel frame. The brilliantly-coloured fabrics for the overscale cushions were designed by Wanders to look like a soaring blue sky.

Highlights from other designers for Moooi include the ingenious Prop Light by Bertjan Pot plus the suspended Colour Globe lamps by Scholten & Baijings in their first collaboration with the company. Studio Job created a new printed carpet called L’Afrique full of brilliant colour and cartoon-like figures of jungle and tribal masks. The studio also designed the new Paper Desk made as a solid piece of furniture from layers of white sheets of paper.

The quirky furniture range by Joost van Bleiswijk and Kiki van Eijk is a series of cupboards in solid ash and woven textiles that were inspired by the construction of Tudor houses. Indonesian designer Alvin Tjitrowirjo’s relaxed Taffeta sofa and chair in rattan evoke tropical weather and large verandas

Wanders says he wants Moooi’s range of lighting, furniture and accessories to create inspiring interiors not banal spaces, designs that are full of new ideas that brighten daily life with a touch of magic. “Our interiors are places where visions converge and where everyone can stop and feel comfortable within an eclectic mix of culture and experiences that makes the home more beautiful and unique,’’ he says.

Click on photographs for full-screen slide-show

Marcel Wanders atmospheric Fragile Fingers on a Grand Piano, 2012.  The installation was on show at the UNTOLD exhibition curated by Rosanna Orlandi at Milan's historic Bagatti Valsechi Museum during Milan Design Week. Picture courtesy of Marcel Wanders

Another evocative show created by Wanders was for Venetian glass design house Barovier & Toso held in the spectacular courtyard of the San Sempliciano cathedral. Called Light E-Motion, the artistic installation by Wanders aimed to surprise the viewer and challenge the laws of physics. Picture courtesy of Marcel Wanders

Add Called Light E-Motion, the artistic installation by Wanders aimed to surprise the viewer and challenge the laws of physics through the movement of glass chandeliers reconfigured to have a human aspect. Picture courtesy of Marcel Wanders

Wanders designed this cartoony, Pop Art piece for Gufram. Called Hortensia, the bright-blue flowered island seat is surreal and designed as a “soft sculpture” in polyurethane foam with a gooey, shiny finish. Gufram describes the piece not as a seat but as a “territory of relaxation for one or more people”. Picture courtesy of Marcel Wanders

Love Chair designed by Marcel Wanders to be big enough for two people to cuddle up on. It is covered in Wanders' white, fluffy "Plush" textile. Photograph by Ambrogio De Lauro

 Designed by Marcel Wanders, the Nest Chair has a sleek galvanised steel frame and big, plump cushions. Wanders also designed the fabric called "One Minute" with swathes of blue sky. Photograph by Ambrogio De Lauro

The hanging lamps are designed Scholten & Baijings and called Colour Globes. They are created with two layers of hand-blown glass encasing an opalescent LED light. Below are the Cocktail Chairs designed by Marcel Wanders with a specially-designed textile covered in historic Dutch motifs. Photograph by Ambrogio De Lauro

New chair and footstool that are part of Marcel Wanders'  Zio collection made from solid oak with a natural, light-stained finish. Photograph by Nicole Marnati

The new Salago lamps are made of paper mache and designed by Danny Fang. They are suspended above theL'Afrique round rug designed by Studio Job with a jungle motif and tribal masks. The chairs are part of the Nut collection in oak designed by Marcel Wanders. Photograph by Ambrogio De Lauro

The Cloud sofa and footstool with round, fluid shapes designed by Marcel Wanders. Photograph by Nicole Marnati

The new Taffeta rattan chair and cushions were designed by Alvin Tjitrowirjo and inspired by traditional Indonesian materials and fruit and flower motifs. Above are the new Salago lamps made of paper mache and designed by Danny Fang. Photograph by Ambrogio De Lauro

The Tudor cupboard by Joost van Bleiswijk & Kiki van Eijk is inspired by the construction of tudor houses and is made of an ash frame and woven textiles of foliage. Photograph by Nicole Marnati

The Kroon lamp by ZMIK ~ Matthias Mohr & Rolf Indermühle ~ with a new light in champagne that diffuses a golden glow. The Tapered tables below are by Moooi in solid oak or birch. Photograph by Ambrogio De Lauro

 Massimo Listri's enormous photographs of interiors behind a dramatic mise-en-scene for Moooi's collection of furniture. Photograph by Ambrogio De Lauro

Tudor buffet designed byKiki van Eijk & Joost van Bleiswijk and made from solid ash with woven textile depiciting autumnal foliage motif. Photograph by Ambrogio De Lauro

At the left of the picture are the new collection of Prop lights by Bertjan Pot. Photograph by Ambrogio De Lauro

The scenic backdrops for the new Moooi collection presented in Milan are all by Italian photographer Massimo Listri. Photograph by Ambrogio De Lauro

Zio dining table and chairs designed by Marcel Wanders to be the centre piece and heart of the house around which families gather, entertain and relax. Photograph by Nicole Marnati

The quirky, padded Love chair designed by Marcel Wanders for Moooi with the Colour Globe lamps above. Photograph by Nicole Marnati

Add The high-back Love chair and sofa designed by Marcel Wanders at the entrance to the 1,700 square metre exhibition space for Moooi's show Via Savona 56 in Milan. Photograph by Nicole Marnati

Barovier & Toso's Murano glass chandeliers exhibited in Milan at the San Sempliciano courtyard. Picture courtesy of Marcel Wanders

The exhibition created by Wanders for the Venetian glass design house Barovier & Toso from Murano. The exhibition was located at Fuorisalone in the Brera. Wanders aimed to surprise the viewer and challenge the laws of physics through the movement of glass chandeliers reconfigured to have a human aspect. Picture courtesy of Marcel Wanders

Another scene from the exhibition curated by Marcel Wanders for Barovier & Toso during Milan Design Week. Picture courtesy of Marcel Wanders

Marcel Wanders "humanised" Murano glass chandeliers for the Barovier & Toso Lights E-Motion show. Picture courtesy of Marcel Wanders

Wanders began a new collaboration with the Very Wood company, creating two new chairs including the linear Century Chair shown above. Picture courtesy of Marcel Wanders

Marcel Wanders designed three new chairs for Italian design company Magis, including two new versions of Cyborg, Lord and Lady Cyborg. Picture courtesy of Marcel Wanders

Secret Rome: Atmospheric Quartiere Coppedè

Photojournalist Christian Evren Gimotea Lozañes captures the looming Gothic apparition of the Quartiere Coppedè. Jeanne-Marie Cilento reports from Rome

EVEN on a sunny day with the Eternal City’s sapphire blue skies gleaming above, the quarter’s darker and more obscure corners have an ominous air. Dripping with stony ornament, towered buildings flank a long, low archway lit by an enormous wrought-iron chandelier that leads to the main square, Piazza Mincio. 

The extraordinary mix of Art Nouveau, Ancient Roman, Egyptian, Medieval and Renaissance motifs is the product of one prolific mind, the Florentine architect Gino Coppedè. In 1916, he was given an architect’s ideal project ~ the opportunity to design an entirely new residential quarter of Rome in Parioli. Given creative carte blanche by the clients, the architect allowed his imagination to run amok and designed an enclave more baroque in sensibility than even Bernini could dream up for 16th Century Rome.

Gino Coppedè was born in Florence in 1866 and began his career as a boy sculpting decorative pieces for furniture. Later he attended the Professional School of Industrial and Decorative Arts, graduating when he was twenty-four and becoming a member of the city's Academy of Fine Arts. The architect continued to work in Rome creating extraordinary buildings in the Quartiere Coppedè until 1927.

The original designs were not created for an eccentric millionaire but for a Ligurian building association to house the city’s growing professional class and civil servants. The stone carved winged serpents, monolithic eastern heads and putti that decorate the buildings all come from Gino Coppedè's youth when he worked in the wood carving studio of his father. 

Walking around the Quartiere Coppedè feels like being in a bizarre fairytale with it’s combination of Florentine towers and Venetian palaces decorated with mosaics and frescoes, Baroque Roman palazzi with real and imitation papal stemmata, sundials and even a building with ironwork and carvings in the form of musical notation. 

Today, forty-five different buildings from three to six stories high make up the Quartiere Coppedè. The mosaic-tiled archways, intricate brickwork, turrets, towers and loggias all create a unique architectural borgo amid one of Rome's most sober and wealthy residential suburbs. 

The Quartiere Coppede's central Piazza Mincio with it's massive Art Nouveau  fountain.

Completed in 1924, the Fontana delle Rane's dynamic figures and water creatures dominate Piazza Mincio. 

Full of movement and fantasy, the fountain's sculptures depict giant shells and water nymphs. 

Spouting head of the Fontana della Rane at the heart of the Coppede Quarter in Parioli

Facade showing architect Gino Coppede's extraordinary mix of architectural and historical motifs from the Roman Corinthian columns and Renaissance loggia to the Art Nouveau curling cast iron balcony and tiles.

Detail of the building's entrance with it's graphic black and yellow tiles, iron and glass lamp and panelled wooden doors.

The fantastical Villino delle Fate with it's mix of terracotta, cast iron and mosaic-tiled decoration. 

Detail of the facade of the Villino delle Fate designed by Florentine architect Gino Coppede and depicting Renaissance Florence including Brunelleschi's Duomo and the Palazzo delle Signoria.

The apartment buildings are decorated with Romanesque loggias, Liberty style ceramic tiles and Roman lion's heads and classical heads.

Looking up to the facade of the entrance building flanking the archway, it is covered in a riot of High Mannerist classical figures and heads carved in Travertine marble.

The street leading into the enclave of the Quartiere Coppede.

The enormous wrought-iron chandelier hanging below the archway at the entrance to the Quartiere Coppede.

Palazzo del Ragno built from Travertine marble, Roman bricks and wood and showing Coppede's combination of historical influences.

Garden terraces and apartments form part of the quarter's entrance archway and look out across Piazza Mincio

Palazzo Del Ragno designed and built between 1916-1924 and showing architect Gino Coppede's capacity to combine different materials such as brick, marble, stone and wood and historical motifs.

The great Travertine marble head above the doors leading into the Palazzo del Ragno

Travertine marble decorations carved to represent a winged griffin and stylised lion's head.

Detail of an elaborate corner balcony, the Grotesques carved in Travertine marble.  

10 Question Column: Finnish Photographer Konsta Leppänen

Photographer Konsta Leppänen with his adopted pointer Buster, found in the streets of Spain. "People are the most interesting subjects for me as a photographer. They’re also the most difficult subjects, since 10 percent is the photography and 90 percent is about observation and interaction."

Konsta Leppänen is a talented young photographer from Finland and a member of the 11 Collective who won the biggest Finnish photojournalism prize last year, the Patricia Seppälä Foundation Award. Andreas Romagnoli and Jeanne-Marie Cilento ask the hipster and intellectual 10 Questions about his life and work

KONSTA Leppänen’s landscape and urban photographs often have a solitary figure lost in a vast alienating cityscape or a sea of snow and water that capture a sense of spiritual and physical isolation. Yet his portraits of people are full of dynamism and life and seem to fizz with suppressed energy. Leppänen alternates between using black and white pictures and those that are more saturated to explicate the contrasts in Finnish life and culture.

His passion for photography began when he started shooting portraits of people on the street and then later joined the 11 Collective, the group of avant-garde photojournalists. He says the collective's aim is to create a new type of Finnish documentary photography. Working with the group, he produces annual in-depth photo essays around chosen themes. 

“Our first project was about Finland and the exhibition has toured around the country for a year now, including at the Finnish Museum of Photography in Helsinki,’’ says Leppänen. “The main idea is to collectively help each individual with their personal projects and to diminish the loneliness of the process. From very early on we expose the process of visual storytelling to the analytical evaluation and constructive criticism of members of the group.”

Today, Leppänen is studying the Master's Program in Visual Journalism at Tampere University and works as a freelance photographer and photojournalist, alternating between working for well-known Finnish magazines and newspapers and making social documentaries.

1.What are you currently working on? 

I’m working on several different projects, two of which are part of our 11 Collective’s upcoming group projects. I was recently in Egypt reporting about the unrest there and I'm still trying to make sense out of those photos. The other is a broader and more personal essay-like study on men of my generation. However, for the next couple of months I’m also working as a staff photographer for Aamulehti, which is the second largest newspaper in Finland, so I won’t be able to work much on these projects right at the moment.

2. What inspires your creative work now?

I’m a typical Finn so very often my inspiration derives from anxiety and sheer envy towards those more talented than myself. It’s a very unhealthy and unproductive way to push yourself forward, but so far it has helped me to pursue my photography.

3. How did you choose photography as your creative metier?

I didn’t choose photography as such. I started studying journalism and worked in newspapers. I could appreciate beautiful, dramatic and clever pictures especially in the context of journalism, but at that point I couldn’t even dream of taking such photos myself. When I finally bought my own first camera, which was relatively late, in my early twenties, it infested me like a disease. I didn’t want to write anymore, writing didn’t motivate me to push forward like photography. Nothing did, really.

4. Can you describe the experience, person or training that has had the greatest impact on your photography style?

Actually, I’m not even sure I have a coherent style just yet, I think I’m only beginning to recognise what my style could be. This is something that should be asked from Elina, my girlfriend and mother of my child.

Since the beginning of my photographic pursuits she's been there encouraging but also judging quite harshly when necessary. You know ~ a slap on the face to get me back on track. I still feel the need to show her everything I've done immediately to see what she thinks about it. I think she knows what my style is way better than I do.

5. What do you find the most challenging aspect of your work technically?

Technically the most challenging thing for me is to not think about the technicalities at all. To let go of the technology, not to think about apertures and focal lengths and flashes and what not. They’re not important. What is important is what you’re taking photos of, not with what you’re doing it. 

For the past year or so I've been very tired of shooting with my DSLR aside from work. It's just too huge and intimidating. I bought a small mirror less camera and I have it with my everywhere I go and it's brilliant, nobody gets scared of it and nobody thinks I'm other than tourist. And the best thing is that I don't think about the technicalities at all! It really has rekindled my photography, same as Instagram, I guess.

6. What do you like to photograph?

People are the most interesting subjects for me as a photographer. They’re also the most difficult subjects, since 10 percent is the photography and 90 percent is about observation and interaction.

7. Do you have a set schedule of working creatively everyday or is the process more fluid?

Since I’m Scandinavian, I’ve tried to organise my creativity. I’ve tried keeping diaries, I’ve promised myself to shoot everyday and so on. So far nothing has really worked. I cannot force it. I think the most important thing is to keep your self somehow inspired everyday. Watch a movie, eye through some photos, analyse illustrations or just listen to music and try to enjoy it.

8.What part of photography gives you the most happiness and do you find your creative process is more rational or instinctive?

I think that if someday I'll be able to be totally instinctive about my photography I could finally be satisfied with myself. Hopefully that never comes. Satisfaction will kill off the urge to push forward and my photography is always closely tied to being unsatisfied. A certain level of struggling is elementary for my progress. But to answer the question: my photography is instinctive at best but usually very rational.

9. Is there a town or place in the world you consider inspiring?

If we talk about street photography or similar, Finland is a difficult country to work in. People are so reserved and they don't show too much emotion (or anything else, for that matter). That's why I really enjoy Rome, for example. People are relaxed and open in public spaces and allow glimpses into who they really are. It's almost as if they don't care and that is very fascinating and scary for a Finn.

10. In our digital age what is the relationship between photography and contemporary art?

I try not to bother myself with questions such as what is art and what is not – especially when it comes to my own work. Even though my photos have been exhibited in galleries and museums, I consider myself to be a journalist, not an artist. I most certainly have nothing against art photography and I am very pleased if someone thinks that my photos are interesting enough when considered in the context of art. However, I'm just not keen on making that distinction myself. With the 11 collective we've been very eager to mix and mess with the concept of art and concept of documentary and I intend to keep pushing those boundaries in the future. 

For more information about Konsta Leppänen visit: http://konstakuva.com

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow

The 11 Collective won the Patricia Seppälä Photojournalism Award in March 2013, the biggest prize in Finnish photojournalism. Konsta Leppänen is at the far right.

A photograph from the 11 Collective's series 3.6 meters or more, an essay about Finns' relationship with their surroundings. It was shot around Finland during 2011 - 2012.

Another picture from the 11 Collective's series 3.6 meters or more about Finns and their environment. 

Looking like a group of medieval saxons, Leppänen's photograph of the Finnish band Death Hawks taken in 2013

A photograph from the Rome series taken in 2011: "I really enjoy Rome ~ people are relaxed and open in public spaces and allow glimpses into who they really are. It's almost as if they don't care and that is very fascinating and scary for a Finn."

 Finland's young Artist of the Year Jarno Vasala, photographed for Finnish Art Today magazine in 2013.

Another picture of Jarno Vasala, the young artist of the year for Finnish Art Today magazine shot in 2013.

A large man in a tiny Fiat 500 from Leppänen's series on Rome.

A plane caught in flight with a dynamic conflagration of birds and a street light. 

An evocative picture simply titled Hangover 2012.

From the Collective 11's 3.6 meters or more essay about Finnish society and landscape. 

Leppänen's photograph of a girl from a story on Finnish dental care taken in 2013