Elisa Ossino’s Hidden Rooms project brilliantly interprets Salvatori’s distinct stone textures and finishes, pushing the creative limits of the already versatile material.
The universe of Salvatori’s natural stones will be transformed into a ‘chamber of optical illusions’ inside the brand’s Brera showroom.
Unveiling new works by John Pawson, Piero Lissoni and Elisa Ossino, visitors are invited to travel through hidden rooms to unearth stories behind these pieces
In occasion of the 2019 editon of Salone del Mobile, Salvatori’s Brera showroom has been transformed by longtime collaborator Elisa Ossino.
The Milan-based designer created a series of rooms to be discovered in a surprise sequence, alternating various types, textures and patterns of Salvatori’s natural stone.
As visitors travel through the winding galleries they discover hidden environments: a small chamber of optical illusions multiplied in mirrored reflections, a large bas-relief mural of geometric figures treated with different varieties and weights of marble and various spatial examinations of Salvatori’s stone, following one another in free form.
” The idea was born from Ossino’s bathroom project, Balnea, We were inspired by the collection’s beautiful linen curtains and wanted to recall this idea throughout the exhibition in order to create a sense of detachment for visitors. Hidden spaces you could view from distance but not touch, as if you are looking out from behind a curtain.
We collaborated with John Pawson, Piero Lissoni and Elisa Ossino because we are drawn to their understated sense of proportion and purity. Their collective feeling of calm is in line with all that Salvatori is.” ………… Gabriele Salvatori
Balnea Collection
by Elisa Ossino
Elisa Ossino enriches her research on the interpretation of white Carrara marble with Balnea, the new bathroom collection designed for Salvatori.
The sensitivity and sculptural quality of the natural stone inspires a new series of accessories and objects of extraordinary aesthetic coherence.
Built around the contrasts of Ossino’s two-dimensional architectural marks and the plastic monumentality of Salvatori’s precious marble, the collection is lightened by a balancing act of contrasting voids.
Washbasins, storage units, shower trays and hangers complement Ossino’s grand monolithic bathtubs, their imposing forms tempered by fluttering woven linen curtains, a visual theme that is carried throughout the showroom.
Adda Collection
by David Lopez Quincoces
Following the success of the Adda basin collection, by David Lopez Quincoces, Salvatori presents a new addition to the series, thought to meet the ever-increasing demands of both the hospitality and private residential sectors.
The wall-mounted basins are clad in precision-cut natural stone giving the appearance of a solid block and avoiding the weight complications.
Ellipse Collection
by John Pawson
John Pawson has created a family of vessels and utensils for the home whose powerful affinities include rigorous simplicity of form, materiality and function.
Each of the pieces comprising the Ellipse Collection is fabricated from a single seamless piece of Bianco Carrara marble.
Circular in plan, the pieces share details of geometry and proportion, with variation in the character of the internal curve determined by embedded rituals of use. Contrasting polished and sandblasted textures create subtle differentiation between flat and contoured surfaces, for the eye and for the hand.
Lost Stones Collection
by Piero Lissoni
Piero Lissoni debuts his Lost Stones collection, a new series of tables fabricated from heritage stone discovered in Salvatori’s archives.
The tables employ the Japanese technique of kintsugi, a method of repairing shattered ceramics with delicate seams of gold: each table is a singularly unique object, its natural pattern, like a bolt of lightning, impossible to replicate.
“ The Lost Stones Collection gives new life to fragments of precious stone, joining them by following the randomness of its shatter. The golden seams along the profiles of each cut transform the imperfect form into a perfect state.” ……………….. Piero Lissoni
Home Collection
by Piero Lissoni
Lissoni also expands his Home Collection: trays, vases and containers blend Salvatori’s natural stone with glass, wood and metal.
The collection includes Salvatori’s first home fragrance, an intense scent with notes of cedar wood and Jasmine which evokes the citrus groves and sun-drenched shores of Sicily, home to Pietra d’Avola, its namesake limestone.
About Elisa Ossino
Architect and interior designer, Elisa Ossino founded her eponymous studio in 2000 in Milan where she leads a team specialising in design, styling and brand image consultancy for leading names in the design sector including Boffi, De Padova, Living Divani, Rubelli and of course Salvatori.
A graduate of architecture from Milan’s Politecnico, Elisa’s approach is characterised by a strong sense of theatre combined with a distinctive touch of indefinable lightness.
Elisa’s first product collaboration with Salvatori led to the Fontane Bianche collection of basins, mirrors and tapware in 2015.
Since then she has designed a number of products including a table collection, the Urano series of lamps and a series of accessories including the widely acclaimed Omaggio a Morandi collection.
About John Pawson
UK-born John Pawson has spent over thirty years making rigorously simple architecture that speaks of the fundamentals but is also modest in character.
His body of work spans a broad range of scales and typologies, from private houses, sacred commissions, galleries, museums, hotels, ballet sets and yacht interiors.
A sense of engaging with the essence of a philosophy of space through everything the eye sees or the hand touches is a defining aspect of Pawson’s work.
His method is to approach buildings and design commissions in precisely the same manner, on the basis that ‘it’s all architecture’.
Over the years John has accrued extensive experience of the particular challenges of working within environments of historic, landscape and ecological significance, key recent examples including the RIBA prize-winning Sackler Crossing – a walkway over the lake at London’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew – and the Cistercian monastery of Our Lady of Novy Dvur in Bohemia, awarded the Frate Sole International Prize for Sacred Architecture in October 2008.
John was among the first to appreciate the potential of Lithoverde®, Salvatori’s groundbreaking stone made of recycled marble, and used it for the acclaimed House of Stone which headlined Milan Design Week 2010.
Eight years later he returned to Tuscany to design the ‘Span’ furniture collection.
About Piero Lissoni
Italian architect and designer Piero Lissoni approaches his work with a mastery of proportion and an acute sensibility for detail that distinguishes the extraordinary from the commonplace.
A graduate of Milan Polytechnic, Lissoni worked as an art director and designer with Boffi Kitchens before opening Studio Lissoni with Nicoletta Canesi in 1986.
A decade later they created Graphx, and went on to become a name to be reckoned with in the fields of industrial design, graphic design, architecture and interiors together with brand image.
Today the combined Lissoni Studios employ over seventy architects, designers and graphic artists and boast a client list that includes Boffi, B&B, Kartell, Knoll, Flos and Living Divani.
On the architectural side, Piero has added the Lissoni touch, among others, to The Middle House in Shanghai, The Oberoi Al Zorah Beach Resort Ajman in the UAE and the Conservatorium Hotel in Amsterdam.
About David Lopez Quincoces
Spanish-born David Lopez Quincoces obtained a degree in Art from the ‘University Complutense of Madrid’ in 2004, followed by a Masters in Interior Design at the ‘Polictecnico di Milano’.
He has lived in Milan since 2005, when he began a collaboration with Piero Lissoni on numerous interior design and architecture projects, such as showrooms, fair stands, private apartments, offices, hotels and resorts, both in Italy and abroad.
Two years later, he opened Quincoces-Dragò & partners, his own studio, based in Madrid and Milan, where today he practices architecture, graphics, interior and industrial design.
About Salvatori
Salvatori is an award-winning third-generation Italian design company specialising in natural stone.
Founded in 1946, the company is renowned for its innovative and elegant products created in our Tuscan headquarters just a few kilometres south of the famed Carrara marble quarries.
From textures for walls and floors, to bathroom items and products for the home such as tables, lighting, mirrors and decorative pieces, the Salvatori brand is recognised as the global benchmark in the “design meets natural stone” field.
Drawing on the very best of Made in Italy values and know-how, Salvatori fuses old-fashioned craftsmanship with contemporary design. Whilst many of its products are the result of partnerships with internationally noted designers, what lies at the heart of all it produces is a deep-rooted passion for the inherent beauty of natural stone, and its defining characteristic: that no two pieces can ever be identical, meaning that every single product has its own unique history.
In 2010 Salvatori developed the award-winning Lithoverde®, the world’s first recycled stone, which is 99% composed of offcuts and has been globally recognised for its contribution to architectural sustainability.
Salvatori products are distributed in over 100 stores worldwide whilst the company has flagship monobrand showrooms in London, Milan and Zurich.
