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Red lines converse and run after each other. Between the strings of the armchairs, the texture of the velvets, the inside of the little table. The designated space is tight and claustrophobic in the overcrowded rooms of the Bagatti Valsecchi Museum, with its gloomy, overpowering furnishings, its clutter of times gone by – armour, shields, tapestries, vases, sideboards, wall paper, wardrobes, pens, bookcases, books and pictures – in the spoliation of the life once lived in that mausoleum of a place.
Then in the geometric patterns of the floor, in the dialogues between forms, colours and materials, in rooms piled high, your glance suddenly sees a void. An apparent void, ordered and geometric, a void closed on two sides, perhaps a different kind of solid. Hints of bygone domesticity remind you that the museum of today, inhabited only by relics, vistors and caretakers, was once a home. Thus precisely that work, which becomes intimate, strong, precise and radical in its spare and almost archetypcal form, marks the advent of a breath of fresh air, an unexpected life in that space.
It is a fine, rigorous brushstroke on the confines of the insidious veins in the floor, a new form that upsets the cold and fragile balance of the house, despite the hard masculine sentiment of the interiors. It is a new expression, something light and airy that catches the house off-guard, and from that moment on, nothing will ever be as it never has been.
Davide Pizzigoni (Milan, 1955) is a many-sided artist, painter, product and set designer and photographer. He boasts prestigious partnerships with important European institutions, such as the Zurich Opera House and the Vienna Staatsoper, as well as with leading brands in the world of fashion, publishing and design
He designs and builds sets for television programmes about the world of architecture and design. He has had personal exhibitions in Milan, Rome, New York, Tokyo and Osaka. Since 2008 he has been working on the subject of the “invisibile” people who work in museums, in at least three directions: I Guardiani dei musei [Museum Caretakers], Gli Uomini del XXI secolo [Men of the 21st Century], La forma del vuoto [The form of the void]
Kitchens are everyday spaces that exist to meet an immediate functional goal. When well designed, they are highly calibrated to support the convenient preparation of food.
In the centre of Milan, a short walk from the duomo, is Villa Necchi Campiglio, designed by Piero Portaluppi (1888-1967) for the Necchi Campiglio family between 1932 and 1935.
How we understand the world of design can depend on the means by which we engage with the subject.
