During Salone del Mobile, it’s not just Rho Pero or the fair grounds that are busy, but the the entire city of Milan is awash with design events happening in galleries, museums, bars and other public places.

For this years Salone, Cosmit & theTriennale Foundation invited Ferruccio Laviani to create a memorable scenario in the gardens of the Triennale ( one of the most popular destinations of Milan Design Week)

Unopiu concept by Ferruccio Laviani

Ferruccio Laviani created a wonderland, crowded by Unopiù ( creatures ) in the garden of Triennale, which was inspired by Lewis Carroll’s famous book, Alice in Wonderland.

The flair and imagination of Laviani – a key representatives of modern design and style and a visionary storyteller – invited the audience to uncover and relax, amongst the attractions of a colourful, dreamlike universe nourishing and renewing itself through fantasy.

Six tiny colourful gazebos – fuchsia, red, emerald green and light green, blue, yellow, orange – hosted out of scale micro-worlds, hanging among reality and fiction:

Three conservatories concealed privés with renown furnishings and novelties of 2013 in the outdoor furniture field.

This is what Ferruccio has to say about his project:……

“I like to imagine that reality always has two sides, a little as if the part reflected in a mirror were to have infinite variations compared to the real image. Every structure will type the chapters of an outdoor fable, to be visited according to an order suggested by personal inspiration and sensitivity, by following wooden paths drawn on the green. On a special runway, défilé of Unopiù red chairs, hanging in the balance on light gibs, bent and inclined as if they’ve just emerged from the underworld.

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The “Unopiù in Wonderland” project is a transposition of the concept I have just described and like Alice who suddenly finds herself in a fantastic hallucinatory world, I have chosen to give the visitors the same emotions offering a “version” of Unopiù which is far from the one in which we normally conceive it.”

“Coming back to reality, designers often get carried away while describing their works in such abstract terminology. As writers, we have to tone down so much of what designers and architects tell us. But hey, they are genius people and what do I know about how to make a chair, right? ”

“What I really love about my work is that through an exhibition or an installation I am able to provide an unexpected, unusual, surprising version of things through a story or an experience.”

Ferruccio Laviani interprets Unopiù:

“I like to imagine that reality always has two sides, a little as if the part reflected in a mirror were to have infinite variations compared to the real image.

What I really love about my work is that through an exhibition or an installation I am able to provide an unexpected, unusual, surprising version of things through a story or an experience.

The “Unopiù in Wonderland” project is a transposition of the concept I have just described and like Alice who suddenly finds herself in a fantastic hallucinatory world, I have chosen to give the visitors the same emotions offering a “version” of Unopiù which is far from the one in which we normally conceive it.

Using products from the Unopiù catalogue, yet giving them a special twist, we tell a story of an imaginary world, of retro collage, tropical interiors, chairs which float on a solid sea: a surreal world of products which dominate the garden and can be related to the metaphysical sculptures of De Chirico.

Above this, we have created a terrace where visitors can pause and invent imaginary dialogues between the two installations.”