Three Japanese studios have moved the lines this week, on the occasion of Milan Design Week – an extension in town and open to all of the Furniture Fair, which is held at the Fiera exhibition center – with new proposals, imbued with a zest of Japanese wisdom.
A new furniture editor, baptized “Koyori”, has launched at the Palazzo dell’arte with a first refined collection of wooden seats and tables, signed by the French Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, and by the famous Italian- Danish GamFratesi. “Our brand is the result of a handful of manufacturers with artisanal know-how in Japanexplains Koda Munetoshi, the director of Koyori. We have called on renowned designers to project our cabinetmaking workshops into the third millennium: the Bouroullec brothers, because they are explorers of forms, who constantly innovate with accuracy, and the GamFratesi because they know how to reinterpret existing products by making them more attractive. »
Armrests and backrests with sensual curves, skilful assemblies, smooth polished surfaces, the pieces strike with their subtle elegance. “Our furniture is not distinguished by specific patterns, but by tiny details, such as this interlocking of a double wooden ribbon in a single chair legadds Koda Munetoshi. For us Japanese, the beauty of everyday objects brings joy to those who use them on a daily basis. »
An immersive experience
Not far from there, still at the Triennale museum, a collective of Japanese creators including the famous architects Tadao Ando, Kengo Kuma or Shigeru Ban, is trying to change – thanks to the “Tokyo Toilet” exhibition – the look that the we focus (or rather that we divert) to small European corners. Photos and videos illustrate their work in the Japanese capital, which, according to them, has made it possible to transform public toilets into “alternative places of art”. Each creation, unique, meets the constraints of comfort, safety and cleanliness. These Japanese toilets wanting to be a school, a state-of-the-art model was inaugurated on Tuesday, June 7, in the Milan metro, under the Duomo, the cathedral.
Elsewhere in Milan, it is in the church of San Bernadino alle Monache, from the XVe century, via Lanzone (usually closed to the public), which the Japanese studio Takt Project invites to an immersive, meditation-like experience. He placed on the ground a hundred white flowers made by hand in an innovative fabric that hardens when heated, which they have specially created. They are the symbol of the marriage of contrasts (here, the consubstantial softness of the fabric with this newly acquired rigidity), like the ying and the yang.
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