4. The Room

The boundary between the personal and the shared has never before been so fragile. The social networks make us live a public life parallel to real life, where we are becoming avatars of ourselves. Everyone feels the need to communicate their personality to the world, in order to exist: passions, tastes, playlists of existence.

Certain forms of exaggeration border on the pathological, the chronic. But there are also possible defence mechanisms, based on disconnection and technological veganism. Is it possible to rediscover a space in which to cultivate intimacy and the personal dimension? How do we select the content to share with others, and how do we share it?

Three interpretations, in winter, spring and autumn, will help us to come to terms with this theme, providing personal readings of the theme “A Room of One’s Own”.

Text by Domitilla Dardi

The project is the result of research I began two years ago for my degree thesis at the Milan Polytechnic, the result of collaboration with faculty advisors Francesco Faccin and Francesca Balena Arista. Beata Solitudo is the refuge of the contemporary hermit – technological, mutant and primitive – a small house with everything necessary to live alone: a place to cook, a place to eat, a place to wash, a place to sleep, an attic to store provisions and to gaze at the stars. There are also spaces to raise animals and the tools required to make use of renewable energy. “O beata solitudo, o sola beatitudo” (blissful solitude is the sole beatitude). Only by separating yourself from the world and from others is it possible to find the pleasure of spiritual peace. This refuge has been designed as a product, rather than a definitive work of architecture; since it has a rigid, self-supporting structure it can be placed anywhere in the world. The wooden walls, like looms, make it possible – depending on the location – to always weave a different cover: it becomes a house of carpets in Mongolia or in the desert, a house of palms in Thailand or the equatorial countries, a house of seal skin in the Antarctic… Beata Solitudo does not set out to be just a physical space, but also to represent the lifestyle of the mutant, primitive technological hermit.

Text by Giuseppe Arezzi

© photo-credit / Francesco Conti

The reflecting surfaces on the walls cancel their material nature in infinite reflected horizons of thought; the walls themselves become big windows, framed by sumptuous drapes. The floor dons a soft material without edges, carpeting in pastel tones that also covers the ceiling, simulating earth and sky, but with the material values of a historic estate.

“In the natural order of things the interior is primarily an intimate, personal space, while external zones are for socializing and sharing. But what happens when this situation is reversed? (…) Welcome to a place where what appears is something other than itself.”

Text by Cristina Celestino

© photo-credits / Silvana Spera

“For us there is no particular distinction between what is personal and what is shared. The space is warm and rhythmical, with the presence of a two-sided daybed that encourages communication, an informal attitude, stories. The space is ready to suggest an action we feel is of the utmost importance: thinking. To make it, we thought about the help of imaginary giants and mentors who push (and support) the walls of this room, trying to make space for big thoughts.”

GamFratesi

To get beyond the conflict between opposites, while preserving the space of discussion: this is one of the distinctive features of the design duo GamFratesi. Female-male, cool-warm, creativity-control are the elements of a constructive confrontation, when they are ordered by visual and mental clarity. Likewise, personal and shared space can also be reconciled. Stine Gam and Enrico Fratesi create a clean but not cold interior, convivial yet silent, bordered yet open. In this room, they have created a place in which to think, a space of concentration that generates wellbeing, in the awareness that we can reach into the depths of our imagination only in a comfortable setting. Ideas are born in public or in private, day or night, but always when we feel at ease. In that moment, it is as if intuitions and emotions had found an order. In an instant, the lessons of the greats of the past come back to mind, in a gentle whisper. This room is supported by giants (like the telamones and caryatids of the palaces of Rome), who open our vision and remind us that everything has a weight – even the material of thoughts.

© photo-credits / Silvana Spera

The space we inhabit is not perfect and ordered like that of magazines and advertisements. The space we inhabit is a reflection of our imperfection and its extraordinary uniqueness.

“To live is to leave traces”, said Walter Benjamin. Starting with this idea, we invited the designers to explain how they make a space feel alive, lived in and capable of telling the story of its occupants. The “Room of One’s Own” becomes even more so a space for exploring what has always governed the relationship between man and his surroundings. A relationship that is certainly not linear, but instead complex and tortuous like the human soul and infinitely variable like the nature of things.

Text by Domitilla Dardi

“There is an integrity to materials that has aesthetic value even in the parts that are not shown. Risvolto originates from the desire to show ceramics in their role as a tile covering, but turning them over to reveal the reverse of the tiles. On this side, in fact, it is the function of gripping the wall that determines pattern and design. Paradoxically, it is the pattern destined to be pressed into the cement that determines the decoration and not considerations of taste and/or style. On a surface, Risvolto summarises the decorative aspect and the one arising from its supporting function, thus giving new patterns to interior surfaces”.

Andrea Anastasio

© photo-credits / Silvana Spera

“Sunset follows a series of experiments on the creation of artificial landscapes using traditional items of furniture: tables, curtains and chairs. The room contains a sunset located in a mobile panorama made of sequins. A table, a drape and just one source of light make up an artificial scene composed of abstract forms. The visitor, attracted by the gleaming surfaces, leaves his traces by brushing against every surface. The sunset will be different every day, the result of visitors passing through”.

Matilde Cassani

© photo-credit / Silvana Sprea

In its third year, “A Room of One’s Own” considers the idea of having guests. The designers are asked to imagine that the space will not only occupy their own personal ideas, but also an actual person of their own choosing.

The theme of hospitality has traditionally implied many people, variable according to different cultures; but now more than ever, it assumes a value that refers to openness, knowledge and sharing as a form of growth. The Room is opened to “Ospiti Desiderati” (Welcome Guests) and every invitation can become a chance to discover new mental territories.

Text by Domitilla Dardi

“And if craftsmanship were at the centre of design? What would happen if design were not only for mass industry, but also involved in craftsmanship? And what would happen if in a parallel world design and craftsmanship created a partnership in which the input of the artisan in the design became a precious, celebrated contribution rather than being limited to the trivial execution of rigid guidelines?”

Khaled El Mays

“The Lebanese designer Khaled El Mays asks these questions about the current relationship between craftsmanship and design. He does so a hundred years after the advent of Bauhaus, a school of thought that defined (thanks to the key figure of Marcel Breuer) an idea of modernity that still influences us today. Since then, modernity has been identified with a way of producing and designing that has been based on the concept of functionalism, rationalism and mass produced industrial items. At that time, Breuer made a choice between artisanship and industry; worlds that no longer seem opposed. Systems are changing and design circuits are increasingly wide and complex. The old idea of modernity now also leaves space for a new perception of the artisan, capable of collaborating, interpreting and creating alongside the designer”.

Text by Domitilla Dardi

© photo-credits / Silvana Spera