cerruti baleri’s Housing Models (Maurizio Galante and Tal Lancman/Maison Martin Margiela/cerruti baleri) |

I'm publishing today a longer version of an interview I recently did for Dazed Digital.

cerruti baleri’s installations at Milan’s Fuorisalone always manage to combine and convey optimism, surprise and fun. This year the Italian company pushed things further, though, recreating in its via Cavallotti showroom four different “housing models”: a creative atelier featuring pieces by Maurizio Galante and Tal Lancman; an office space and a canteen with cerruti baleri’s own creations, and an entire flat furnished by Maison Martin Margiela.

The showroom turns therefore into what cerruti baleri Art Director Federico Carandini calls “dreamy or realistic boxes”, spaces where visitors can admire or play with new designs from the Collezioni and Edizioni lines, complemented this year by pieces produced by other companies that have a special synergy with cerruti baleri.

Upon entering the Creative Atelier you get the impression you’re surrounded by a rich environment, punctuated by Carrara marble pieces. Yet when you touch the designs you realise this is all a perfect optical illusion as the pieces are actually covered in a soft silk Carrara marble photographic print. Can you tell me more about the designs in this space?
Federico Carandini: This space perfectly reflects Maurizio Galante and Tal Lancman’s multi-faceted creative process. Here visitors will be able to see the new “Luigina” chair characterised by the same trompe l’oeil Carrara marble, amethyst and malachite print featured in the Luigi XV sofa, that this year we reinterpreted also in the two seater version. The matching “Wow” three panelled-screen and the “Tattoo” flexible seatings or footrests with the same marble print are also part of this section dedicated to optical illusions, with pieces that look very heavy, but are actually extremely light and soft. In the showroom window there is instead a unique piece recreated for the design week: a collector’s cabinet by Galante and Lancman designed to preserve and highlight the objects inside it. The display cabinet was originally exhibited at Paris’ Centre Pompidou for the exhibition “Planète Manga”. This new version comes in fluo fuchsia lacquered wood with black velvet lining and a technical fabric curtain.

How did you manage to recreate an ideal Maison Margiela apartmet in the lower floor of the showroom?
Federico Carandini: It was actually a major achievement as we managed to carve out of the lower floor four main rooms that include all the pieces the maison did for us and for other companies such as Galerie B and L’Atelier d’exercices as well, plus iconic cerruti baleri pieces. I followed the installation of the Margiela apartment and I think it looks really strong. While the apartment features different spaces – day and night, formal and informal – the emphasis is on the bedroom space, conceived as the nest where the maison’s new products can be admired. The maison designed for us the surreal “Telo”, a classic upholstered headboard completely transformed by a distortion process that turned it into an asymmetrical headboard; versatile and compact “Easy” and “Lazy”, a bed desk and a bed table that look like proper furniture pieces as they are completely made in wood, but they come in a mignon size, and “Lolo”, a sort of deconstructed open armoire structure ideal to store clothes, books or even kitchenware, that can be combined with a separate closing element, an external folding screen called “Mademoiselle”.

Are there any historical cerruti baleri products in the office and in the canteen spaces of the showroom?
Federico Carandini: We have a few surprises and two new pieces in these spaces: since this year it’s the 25th anniversary of the “Juliette” chair designed by Hannes Wettstein, one of our classics and one of the greatest design pieces of the latest 30 years. We offered a new interpretation of the Juliette in fluo orange that projects this design originally made in the ‘80s into the future. This section also features beautiful bichrome variants of “Plato” and “Platone”, Jeff Miller’s side tables, and Leonardo Perugi’s “Droplet”, a smaller version of the “Drop”, with a great playful potential especially for kids, but also very functional for grown ups. Among the new designs there is instead the “Gran Milano” armchair and sofa by an anonymous 20th century designer. The name of this piece comes from Clint Eastwood’s film “Gran Torino”, it’s a great functional design, a recovered project that we improved and decided to attribute to an anonymous 20th century designer as a statement against all the modern obsession with celebrity designers.

Did you decide to integrate also products by other companies to make the recreated spaces look more realistic?
Federico Carandini: This was one of the reasons, but we also opted for this choice as the products complete and complement each other beautifully and because we feel that collaborating together with other producers is important especially in the difficult times we’re all going through.

We may be going through hard times, but cerruti baleri always presents during Milan Design Week quite optimistic installations, what’s your secret?
Federico Carandini: We have an international rather than Italian frame of mind and we tend to react positively to what has been going on in the market as we think there is no other way out. It is even more risky to just stop developing products and keep on producing the same old ones just because there is a crisis. Our mission is going forward, choosing maybe technologies and methods that put less strain on the company and diversifying our approach, while always preserving the quality of our products and offering pieces that, through their optimism, glamour or functionality, can excite and move the consumers.