The 62nd edition of Milan‘s Salone del Mobile has kicked off, and the city is brimming with must-see design showcases and events. London and Italy-based company WonderGlass, founded in 2013 by father and son Maurizio and Christian Mussati, maintains a vision of preserving the skills and techniques of the Venetian master glassmakers, stimulating new luxury markets for design-led glass along the way. During the world-renowned design week in the Lombardian capital, the company presents CONTRASTO, an alluring showcase of new lighting collections by leading design practices nendo and FormaFantasma. The chosen venue, the ornate 19th-century concert hall on the imposing premises of the Istituto dei Ciechi, sees the Dusk Collection by nendo recast contrasting elements as a cosmic poetry.
Warm, bronzed fused glass sheets combined with blown glass illuminated orbs to approximate the tranquillity of dawn and dusk—the transition between the contrasts of light and darkness. Oki Sato, the studio’s founder, arranged this series of lamps in a gradated procession, mimicking the day arc of the sun’s gradual ascent and descent. In contrast, a first collaboration with FormaFantasma for WonderGlass’s portfolio of works, the Milan and Rotterdam-based duo’s pendant light collection Graft approaches blown and cast glassmaking traditions. By balancing and interrogating the industrial and organic, the domestic and the architectural, the rational and the emotional, the collection’s stern geometries find a surprising counterpoint in the delicate handcrafted Murano glass flowers springing to life all across thesteel and cast glass suspension (on through Apr 20).
Istituto dei Ciechi
Via Vivaio 7 (Duomo)
20122 Milan
Daily 10am-7pm
Publishers Note
Just to be clear – superfuture® is a design blog and not a political commentator. No surprise there. The scope of our content has always been global and borderless, however that can often mean covering projects in countries where we will not agree with the politics or actions of those countries. In a world that’s as screwed up as ever right now, the focus of our support is to those designers, architects and other creatives who aim to make the world a more liveable one – as opposed to people that try their hardest to destroy it. So if a project hits our desk and we like it based on its design credentials, we may choose to publish regardless of its location or creators nationality. superfuture® has always been inclusive and hopes for all current wars, aggression, violence, hate and extremism to end.
