Milan's Salone del Mobile is ready to return next month (from 7th to 12th June) after the Covid-19 Omicron variant alert earlier on this year prompted the organisers to postpone it.
The trade show is celebrating its 60th anniversary with a focus on sustainability, but, as designers, architects and companies are starting to reveal the products they will present, it looks like there is another theme that will be trending - geometry.
Luxury tile and glass mosaic manufacturer Bisazza, for example, turned to French architecture duo Karl Fournier and Olivier Marty for their new collection, characterised by basic geometries in mesmerising configurations.
Fournier and Marty founded Studio KO, based in Paris and Marrakech, in 2000 and, since then, they have been focusing on architecture and interior/furniture design, privileging primary and ancestral materials - stone, wood, metal and leather.
Apart from being very passionare about the materiality of textures, the duo also favour juxtapositions. One of the recurring themes in their practice is the interplay between light and shadows.
Studio KO's collection for Bisazza features three modern and minimalist patterns ideal to create innovative geometrical shapes and light/shadows contrasts.
For this collaboration, the duo moved from the Italian tradition and in particular from the tile motifs found in Pompeii, the intricate floors of St. Mark's Basilica, and the architectural works of Gio Ponti and Piero Portaluppi.
The three resulting patterns - Modulo 1, Modulo 2 and Modulo 3 - can be used for floors or walls, and come in three different colors, Chiaroscuro, Monocromo and Policromo, all in a matte finish.
While Modulo 1 is based on a sequential repetition of one rectangle in different colours with a cadence that calls to mind an algorithmic structure, Modulo 2 is composed of two triangles, and the resulting pattern is an attempt at recreating a textile weave in marble (this is clearer in the Monocromo version, look at the fifth image in this post from a distance and you'll clearly spot the textile weave pattern).
Last but not least, the (semi) circle animates Modulo 3, composed of three elements, a triangle, a semi-circle and a square with a half circle cut out that can interact with the semi-circle tile.
The three patterns come in a combination of black, white and grey (Chiaroscuro), or in a densely veined white marble with golden elements (Monocromo) and in ocher, black and grey (Policromo).
The consistency and texture of marble proves fascinating for many designers, Studio KO included. "Marble is our chosen material featured in almost all our projects. Its rich heritage and, at the same time, contemporary elegance, make it a source of unlimited creativity and innovation," Fournier and Marty state in a press release about this collaboration.
"As architects and connoisseurs of understated elegance, we pay tribute to this treasured mineral through a reworking of modern domestic concepts that transforms the traditional aesthetic customs, uses and, often, functions of marble."
Collezione Studio KO for Bisazza is the first collaboration between the architecture firm and the Italian brand, and will be on view during Salone del Mobile in Milan, while it is already available in all the Bisazza flagship stores in Milan, Paris, London and New York.
It's only natural to wonder if Studio KO will turn their geometrical patterns one day into a collaboration with a fashion house: the more you look at this collection, the more you feel that, at some point, we may see these patterns translated into luxury leather bags.
Actually a collaboration between the architecture studio and a fashion house is not unlikely as Studio KO already worked for somebody very close to a fashion house, as they were commissioned the Yves Saint Laurent Museum Marrakech (that opened in 2017) by Pierre Bergé.
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