The Chiostri dell’Umanitaria, via Daverio 7, again hosts the presentation of the new Paola Lenti collections during the International Design Week.
For six years, in fact, they, together with some rooms on the ground floor of this former Franciscan monastery, have housed the shows put on by Paola Lenti for Design Week.
This is an association that has given back to the people of Milan one of those institutions symbolic of the city itself and which provides visitors to the Fuorisalone with one of its most surprising experiences
The cloisters of the Società Umanitaria are a magical place. Redolent in history and a beautiful example of Lombard Renaissance architecture, they are one of those hidden corners of Milan that help to make the Fuorisalone such a unique event.
The already powerful range of colours offered by Paola Lenti, which allows for customizing its outdoor rugs and seating collections, is refreshed today with new soft pastel hues, which invite us to escape the greyness of the routine and to indulge in a new lightness, suspended between the transparent light of the clouds and the colours of the winter sea.
The creativity of Paola Lenti strives toward gradations, always diverse, offering to our perceptions a new host of delicate and luminous tones.
paolo lenti
What makes this Paola Lenti 2016 installation special is its origins -the result of relationships made of dialogues, exchange and sharing of ideas with designers, stylists and artisans.
The Company has always aimed to go beyond the usual, aware that invention is only possible as a relationship, as transposition from one register to another, so as to seize from the whole those ideas, which are capable of raising emotions.
Walking through the carefully tended gardens, pausing for a rest in the shade of the Giardino dei Platani or raising your eyes to gaze at the ceiling of the Salone degli Affreschi are worthwhile experiences in themselves.
But if we add to this the possibility of seeing one of the most spectacular and well-designed displays of the entire Salone, a visit then is a must.
anna lenti with michael from dedece touring the exhibition together
“ Once again the world seems to be made up of interrelationships rather than single objects.” ……. C. Rovelli, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (Allen Lane)
paola lenti and francesco rota 2015
The friendship comes working, but “you do not work, and this is impossible to change, if there is no friendship.”…… Francesco Rota
Rota, the main furniture designer from Paola Lenti recounts his ‘relations’: those that give the title to his exhibition at the Cloister dell’Umanitaria for Salone, and without which “the design can not live, because creativity is not just a fact lonely, but it’s a joint of skills. ”
Paola and Francesco have a strong personal friendship that spans twenty years,
paola llenti with marella ferrera
Paola ….. ” He, yes, designers, not like me, are primarily persons who haves ideas ”
Francsco ….. ” We met to work twenty years ago, I did the graphics, it was thanks him if I started to design objects. ”
A friendship of more recent times but of great intensity, is the one Paolo has made with the Sicilian Marella Ferrara, which came about almost by accident years ago.
Paola .. ” She was decorating a hotel, and wanted to buy some of our pieces. From there he was born a sympathy, which has led us to collaborate. Sympathy is essential, the best collaborations are born as well. If not you might as well be sending a project to be unknown and evaluate it. But that’s not how proceeds creativity.”
And so each piece on display at the 2016 Salone is a relationship based collaboration –
The Portofino series of chairs and tables is designed with Vincent Van Duysen
The outdoor mats Florio and Donna Costanza, together with the tables Cocci and Sciara, collected inspirations of the Sicilian Marella Ferrera
Plants coming from the Lighthouse of Catania
Illuminations designed with Davide Groppi
Paola … “In projects that I work on – for my 100% effort – there are only two things: research on colors and research on materials. Those are all my ideas, my vision completely. The rest is the result of meetings. ”
” Relationships” and “ Connections ” have been given much emphasis in the rhetoric of ” Social Media ” which Paolo admits she doesn’t spend much time on.
Paola ….. ” I prefer travelling, when I need to gather inspirations, ideas, suggestions. Social Media is like traveling without leaving home. Facebook etc to me is like a library, not a bar. Creativity feeds elsewhere, graphic arts, painting. And by studying nature, which has already drawn everything. And that you can do it yourself. ”
The Paola Lenti 2016 Indoor Scenographies @ Chisotri dell Umanitaria
The strength of Paola Lenti as a Company has always been in teamwork, able to blend into the matter the depth of thinking and the gesture of the artisan, the radiance of colours, the scientific knowledge and the inspiration of geometry and forms.
The poise of the forms is not subjected to the whims of fashion, since extreme care for each detail has made each item unique and timeless, destined for homes where it is possible to implement the process of stratification, a true hallmark of contemporary living.
The pieces presented in this edition are designed to stand the test of time.
Chiostri Main Hall
The fashion designer Marella Ferrera has contributed to the event with the project “Viaggio in Sicilia”.
She presented an emotional journey to discover “her” Sicily, a generous, beautiful land, where passion permeates each fragment of life and where the culture of signs and colours is the result of endless encounters.
The music selected by Edo Scirè accompanies us in the magic of this island, a deep and refined dialogue between arias and contemporary sonorities.
Welcoming us in this world, that Marella Ferrera presents us with enthusiasm and true love, are the images of large illustrated books by the editor Domenico Sanfilippo, dedicated to the infinite beauty of Sicily.
Maestro Tino Giammona, whose art pieces are ablaze with antique colours; Luigi Camarilla, that gives new life to the boards washed up by the sea, transforming them in ex-voto.
Alice Valenti, with her painted wheels reminiscent of the ancient art of Maestro Minicu Di Mauro, a centenarian decorator of the typical Sicilian carts.
Also, Maestro Nicolò Morales with his “fish” dancing in an aquarium like ambient, or Alessandro Di Rosa with his plate-sculptures of recycled glass, Maestro Peppino Leone and his black and white photos and Maestro Franco Bentivegna and his big terracotta anthropomorphic heads.
Chiostri Ante-rooms
Uptown is a series composed of left and right, linear or shaped sectional elements, chaise longue and pouf.
The steel structure is padded with cold injected polyurethane; the removable upholstery cover is available in the fabrics Blend, Dots or the new Piqué, all indoor Paola Lenti’s signature fabrics.
Shito is a new chaise lounge with fixed structural cover hand woven with Chain Outdoor tubular knit.
The visible base is available with different finishes: natural bras, natural copper or stainless steel with a special galvanic treatment made by De Castelli on an exclusivity basis.
The Gon dining table has the rounded base and the top made of turned and gloss varnished steel sheets, available in avorio or grafite colour.
The table is also available for the interiors; it is made of brass sheets, which are turned and finished with a special treatment to obtain the peculiar brushed effect, made on an exclusivity basis by De Castelli.
Paola Lenti’s 2016 Relationship event partners
Davide Groppi
indoor lighting
Davide Groppi and Paola Lenti wove their electrical wires together again during the special exhibition at the Chiostri dell’Umanitaria
Oikos
colours and materials for sustainable architecture
Oikos and Paola Lenti, a partnership which has been renewed for the sixth consecutive year, sharing the same passion and vision: colour and matter as essential elements of contemporary design.
Colour and matter have a primary role in recounting and enhancing the harmony, elegance and balance of the forms in the new collection of matter and colours by Paola Lenti for Oikos
