Innholdsfortegnelse for 2025 / 01-02 i Interni

The delicate signs of a Japanese illustrator meet the sophisticated taste of Hermès’ art de la table: the Kaorumi collection of porcelain dessert plates reflects the collaboration between Hèrmes and Ryo Takemasa, an artist based in Tokyo who has illustrated the pages of Monocle and The New Yorker. Kaorumi in Japanese indicates the scent and flavor of fruit, and the Kaorumi service seeks to convey these sensations through soft colors and symmetrical and minimalist designs that seem made with a compass and ruler. A visual tale of freshly cut fruit: 15 drawings for twelve dessert plates and three serving plates, with golden borders, show fruits of all seasons: blackcurrant, pomegranate, fig, apple, strawberry, banana, nectarine, kiwi, cherry, pear, lemon, orange, pineapple, watermelon and grape.…

SIGNIFICANTLY, THE FIRST TREATISES ON JAPANESE GASTRONOMIC culture, the Tenzo Kyōkun and the Fushuku Hanpō, written during the Kamakura period (1185 – 1333) by the Buddhist monk Eihei Dōgen, founder of the Sōtō Zen school, devote ample space to etiquette and table manners, then to the preparation of dishes. In Japan, the aesthetics of food is never an end in itself but the physical and concrete reflection of a spiritual message. The seasonal flower, inedible, laid in the middle of the plate is not a garnish, but the element that emphasizes belonging to the natural universe. In Japanese gastronomy, aesthetics go beyond the dish and extend to the container, beautiful and refined and always in harmony with the season – glass in summer, lacquer in winter – to merge with…

Few artists have been able to explore and break down the boundaries between disciplines and cultures like Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988). Sculptor, designer, architect and visionary, Noguchi was one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Born in Los Angeles to an American mother and Japanese father, Noguchi grew up in the United States and Japan, an experience that profoundly shaped his artistic outlook, a fusion of Eastern and Western aesthetics and philosophies. This twofold cultural heritage greatly influenced his style, but also made him diffi-cult to classify. Noguchi argued that only by engaging in the creative process can one truly learn. His style is minimalist yet emotional, rooted in simplicity and balance, with a close attention to the relation between the work and its setting. In fact, he…

In brief P. 40 Tradizione e modernità Un luogo unico dove le expertise, la creatività e il patrimonio culturale francese convivono con l’architettura e l’arte contemporanea internazionale. La Maison Ruinart, la più antica casa di champagne del mondo, fondata nel 1729, riapre le porte del suo storico indirizzo a Reims in Champagne, 4 Rue des Crayères, con il Padiglione Nicolas Ruinart, un nuovo centro visitatori firmato dall’architetto giapponese Sou Fujimoto e dal designer d’interni Gwenaël Nicolas, e con un giardino di 7000 metri quadri progettato dal paesaggista Christophe Gautrand per accogliere le opere degli artisti selezionati per Carte Blanche e come rifugio per la biodiversità locale. Il padiglione è un edificio asimmetrico in pietra e vetro con una copertura in legno curvato, dotato di raccolta dell’acqua piovana, che coniuga così innovazione…

The Grand Ring Sou Fujimoto The Grand Ring is the project by Sou Fujimoto to develop the theme of Expo 2025 Osaka, “Designing Future Society for Our Lives,” with the aim of achieving “Unity in Diversity.” The ring will function as the main entrance for visitors, providing a space sheltered from rain and sunlight, while the elevated green Skywalk will offer a 360-degree view of the entire Expo site, the Seto Inland Sea and the urban landscape of Osaka. The enormous structure covering an area of about 60,000 square meters is one of the world’s largest wooden constructions. With an inner diameter of 615 meters and an outer diameter of 675, the body of the ring is 30 meters wide and 12 meters high, reaching 20 meters at the highest…

“THINKING WITH THE HANDS” is one of the themes the Italy Pavilion brings to the audience of Expo 2025, through the experience of crafts and the history of many artisanal workshops that constitute a regional and natural background. Crafted products, on their way to responding to everyday needs as finished articles, represent a process connected to the territory, the transmission of technical and material know-how, mirroring the history of our country. The ‘crafted value’ generated by small businesses is one that creates, transforms, repairs, revitalizes, includes and unites. Craftsmanship, with its expertise in any field, bears witness to excellence in continuous pursuit of perfection in the making, the choice of the finest materials, the creation of durable objects that can be conserved and regenerated in time. This is the true…

THE ITALY PAVILION DESIGNED BY THE ARCHITECT MARIO CUCINELLA takes its cue from the Renaissance concept of the ‘Ideal City,’ representing an ideal of harmony between man and nature. The theme of the Holy See, “Beauty brings Hope,” fits perfectly into this vision. The verb ‘bring’ (porta) suggests a dynamic movement towards hope, while at the same time referencing the Porta Santa of the Jubilee, a symbol of welcome for all who are seeking peace and reconciliation. Beauty, in all its forms, represents a crucial factor in the construction of stronger social relations, prompting the active participation of every individual in the life of the community. Beauty, in fact, possesses a transformative power: it is able to touch hearts and to reawaken the desire for a better world. From the…

RELATIONS BETWEEN ITALY AND JAPAN FIND FERTILE GROUND in the field of design. Journeys, references and tributes have punctuated the stories of companies for over 70 years, and above all the careers of creators who without this reciprocal nourishment would not have developed a particular aesthetic applied to industry. Were we to imagine a direct thread linking the two countries, for reasons of brevity we could focus on tours from city to city. Clearly Milan and Tokyo have been the two epicenters. Nevertheless, the list could be lengthened in various phases, starting from Sendai and San Vito di Altivole, in the province of Treviso. The first is the city where due to a banal accident Carlo Scarpa lost his life; the second is the town that hosts the Brion tomb,…

The No.15 chair by the Japanese designer Taiju Yamashita for Daft about Draft harmoniously combines simplicity and refined design. Handcrafted with meticulous care, the beechwood seat with a rattan backrest is available in three finishes, natural, brown and black. The project developed around the search for optimal comfort attained thanks to the embrace of the rounded backrest. The Daft about Draft brand was founded in Tokyo in 2022 by the young designer Taiju Yamashita, with the aim of designing versatile furniture for a contemporary urban lifestyle. The brand made its debut in Italy in 2023 when it presented itself at the Salone del Mobile in Milan. Yamashita, with his Draft studio, ranges between interior design, architecture and the production of furniture, with a clear philosophy: spaces must be designed for…

EIGHTY YEARS OF RAPID ECONOMIC GROWTH, technological innovation and mass production have changed the world, but also generated intensive waste disposal and unprecedented environmental challenges. Since the 1960s, Toshiyuki Kita has been in the forefront of all this, observing the evolution of the design project in Italy and Japan. He is also one of the protagonists of change, enabling him to study closely the transformations of global manufacturing industry. Kita has designed sofas with organic forms, ergonomic chairs that embrace the human body, and cutting-edge flat-screen TV sets, all combining technology and human sensibility. But at the same time, faithful to his approach for over fifty years, he continues to integrate traditional, artificial and natural, old and new materials into the creative process in the spirit of reinvention. In particular,…

“In the architecture that studs the Land of the Rising Sun, the line that delimits ‘what we are’ from what is ‘other than us’ is not always clear, but fades into a relationship of reciprocity that completes both people and the environment. This is because for the Japanese, space, traditionally characterized by clean geometries, smooth planes and natural materials, is a sort of stage that is first set up in the mind, and then prepares us for the experience of life.” Denis Guidone shares a cultivated and precise insight into the culture that has welcomed him and enabled him to grow, humanly and professionally. A principle that resonates in his sensibility and that he wants to ensure is not lost in translation of the telling of the story. “My design,…

Curated by Maria Cristina Didero, Craft x Tech is the traveling cultural project promoted by Hideki Yoshimoto, founder of the studio Tangent, to highlight the collaborative potential between contemporary design and traditional Japanese craftsmanship. Six international creatives – Sabine Marcelis, Studio Swine, Ini Archibong, Yoichi Ochiai, Michael Young and Hideki Yoshimoto – engaged with as many craft districts in the Tohoku region of Japan. “It is impossible to create a completely new world,” begins the promoter of the initiative, “but it is possible to build a lens to see it differently. Japan’s enormous historical legacy of crafts and culture can be interpreted to enable people to rediscover an original beauty.” With the Rain floor lamp, Yoshimoto pushes the construction potential of Aizu Hongo Yaki’s ceramics into a monolithic sculpture that…

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THE MUTUAL FASCINATION BETWEEN ITALY AND JAPAN IS NOTHING NEW: our cultures, though distant in geographical terms, have ties whose growth has been remarkable ever since the 1800s, when the Treaty of Friendship of 1866 formalized our diplomatic relations. From that point on, for over 150 years, the relationship has evolved constantly, generating a strategic partnership most recently reflected in the meeting between the President of the Council of Ministers Giorgia Meloni and the Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, in January 2023. This new era in bilateral relations is based on the desire of both countries to intensify cooperation in key sectors, and to respond together to the global challenges of the 21st century, safeguarding shared values and international principles while protecting the interests of our respective economies and societies. In…

THERE ARE MANY ARTISTS, AT TIMES MORE FAMOUS IN ASIA THAN IN ITALY, who will be on hand in the Italy Pavilion, taking part in the permanent exhibition, the VIP rooms and the reception areas, as well as in the outdoor spaces. They are artists with different languages and reference points, who explore the relationship between art, science and technology, offering reflections on the balance between personal wellbeing and the environment. This is the case of the sculptor Jago or of the cyber-ecologist Oriana Persico, whose site-specific installations address some of the underlying themes of the contemporary world. But also Francesca Leone, an artist who works with discarded sheet metal. They are joined by Giulio Cinti, an architect and sculptor, Simone Legno, known in Asia for his pop graphics, and…

FOR ME ITALY AND JAPAN ARE TWO WORLDS, distant from each other but united by deep cultural affinities. Both excel in the field of crafts, where every gesture is a statement of mastery and respect for materials. In these two countries, artisans do not simply work: they listen to materials and establish a dialogue, letting themselves be guided by their essence. It is an approach that requires confidence in one’s own abilities, and extraordinary humility at the same time. This philosophy of craftsmanship, which is so rare in the world today, makes every encounter I can have with Italian artisans become a precious opportunity to learn and to be inspired, as well as to take part in lively discussions. The differences are also quite fascinating. In Japan wood is the…

The age-old idea emerges of the house as a strictly private microcosm, a protective environment for the family THE SINGLE-FAMILY URBAN HOUSE has given rise in contemporary Japan to a dense pathway of experimentation, which from varied solutions juxtaposed in series without precise orchestration has evolved into the separation of distinct units: rooms arrayed on a small lot to generate a private micro-city, open to the surrounding urban fabric (see the famous Moriyama house in the Ōta-ku district of Tokyo by Ryue Nishizawa, immortalized in the beautiful film Moriyama-San by Bêka & Lemoine). The recent history of the Japanese single-family house, however, could be interpreted not only as a vast atlas of contemporary shelter solutions, a proving ground for architecture on a larger scale, but also as the mirror of…

RECOGNIZED FOR DESIGNING KITCHENS impervious to fashions and accompanying people all through their lives, Valucine has also been a pioneer, since the nineties, in the adoption of sustainable practices and materials before these values became strictly topical. For example, it devised the concept of dematerialization, concretely embodied in the development of the world’s thinnest and lightest aluminum frame door (just two millimeters thick) and the record of having created the first 100% recyclable kitchen. Today, with “Architectural Scenarios”, the company is celebrating the integration between its collections and their architectural contexts by emphasizing a key concept: namely that the development of a kitchen also means designing its relationship to its setting. An unprecedented approach, which represents the most recent stage in a journey that has seen the brand intensify its…

Two projects tell the story of Federica Biasi’s passion for Japan: the Koya coffee table by Incalmi and the Kimono tiles by Decoratori Bassanesi. Koya by Incalmi grew out of research into natural fibers and weaves, not just in aesthetic but also technical terms. The designer explains: “In an age where everything happens in a hurry, taking time to discover, travel and conduct research is extremely precious. Koya tells the story of one culture that encounters another. It is a project of discovery and rediscovery.” The name evokes a trip by the designer to Mount Koya, in Japan, where craftworkers make fine rattan objects with meticulous care. The Kimono tile collection by Decoratori Bassanesi mixes traditions and distant cultures. On the one hand, it repeats one of the company’s historic…

FOR THIRTY YEARS, RYUTARO YOSHIDA HAS BEEN PURSUING A CULTURAL MISSION, even more than an entrepreneurial one: to rediscover and enhance the value of his country’s ancient artisan heritage – whether applied to working solid wood, lacquer, porcelain or washi paper – and embody it in contemporary and globalized everyday life. The factory in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, is the nerve center of a network of over one hundred craft workshops that preserve ancient local traditions: a widespread production system that creates a vast collection of furnishings, lamps and tableware. But it also creates custom products and supplies for large projects – hotels, restaurants, private homes – by world-famous architects. Roberto Gavazzi, CEO of Boffi|DePadova, following in the wake of Maddalena De Padova’s pioneering vision, grasped the affinities and potential of the…

THE CITY OF TOYOTA is mainly known for its multinational automotive company, but it has an ancient history, with deep roots in a lively manufacturing culture (originally the production of silk) and the heritage of its landscape nestling between the mountains and the Yahagi River. The vestiges of the past can be seen today in the Shichishuda area, where the ancient Koromo Castle once stood. In the 20th century it was converted into a cultural center, a function enhanced by the establishment of the Toyota Municipal Center of Culture and Art on the site in 1975 and the opening of the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, designed by Yoshio Taniguchi, in 1995. It is in this setting that Shigeru Ban has created the Toyota City Museum devoted to the region’s…

RADIATORS, FIREPLACES, SAUNAS, HEATERS, RADIANT PANELS. The appliances for defending us against winter’s chill are many and varied. What all these products share is clearly a concern for their aesthetic qualities, equally divided between the yearning for an evergreen designer minimalism and the proud assertion of a formal impact that is sure to take center stage and capture the eye. But they also embody the primacy of a hidden yet decisive technology, used to control the functioning of the devices, including remotely, while minimizing their costs and impact on the environment even at the end of their life cycle. Without forgetting a further distinctive feature. They are modular (in size and finish), a quality tenaciously pursued, with the aim of providing everyone with the perfect heat source for their needs.…

SINCE THE FOUNDER PIETRO BAGLIETTO decided to start building small craft in the garden of his house at Varazze back in 1854, the shipyard of the same name has been synonymous with creative spirit, technical genius, ingenuity in research and development. Today, 170 years later, the seagull brand continues to be a pearl of the world yachting scene, the pride of our industry. Its yachts have turned the heads of rulers, great entrepreneurs, scientists and musicians, Guglielmo Marconi and Gabriele d’Annunzio: iconic motorized models (and even sailboats) built for pleasure but also the Navy, such as the speedy MAS boats that played their part in World War II. Always a shipyard of models with a restrained and elegant design, Baglietto builds with a unique craft-based approach, combining excellent materials with…

The practice of Kensuke Koike (Nagoya, Japan, 1980, resident in Venice) is characterized by the use of a refined craft technique that manipulates, deconstructs and recombines found or vintage photographs. The result is curious and surprising, surreal, paradoxical, sometimes disturbing, sometimes ironic, but it always conveys an unexpected beauty. The goal? To create new visions, new worlds and new potential ways of interpreting reality. How do you create one of your works? I don’t use my own photos but found or vintage images. The photos I edit are original, so there is no room for error. Getting the result I want takes a lot of trial and practice, so I only act when I feel ready to cut the original. On average, it takes me two weeks to alter an…

Adolfo Guzzini. Ho visto la luce by Giacomo Solari, Baldini + Castoldi 2024, pagg.144, € 18,00. In the positive encounter and cheerful complicity between architects and entrepreneurs/industrialists, between creative/utopian tension and mastery of the project for its industrial production, the multilinear history of Italian design finds the scope of a development that the world still envies us for experimentation, innovation and flexible production. It is difficult to talk about the work of any Italian designer without referring to the company that translated their ideas into industrial products. But companies are not abstract entities, they are made up of the men and women and entrepreneurs who lead them. And in the case of product design in Italy, they appear enlightened people, ready to listen and eager to improve the know-how of…

The first issue of the year is entirely dedicated to Japan and the mutual relations between Japanese and Italian culture. The opening of Expo 2025 Osaka on 13 April, and hence of the Italian Pavilion designed by Mario Cucinella, in collaboration with the Commissioner-General Mario Vattani and with Interni as media partner, is fast approaching. The event provides the inspiration for this special issue. On the pages to follow, we narrate the contents, protagonists and aims of the project, a “tangible symbol of the ingenuity, creativity and sustainability of our country,” as Cucinella himself explains. Our in-depth focus is on ‘Japanism’ seen in terms of the cultural and aesthetic influence of the country on the masters of Italian design. At the same time, the protagonists of Japanese design and architecture…

THE AMBASSADORS OF THE ITALY PAVILION are illustrious Japanese personalities from the world of culture, music, architecture and design, with deep ties to Italy and a long history of interaction. In Italy they have found a source of inspiration, and throughout their extraordinary artistic careers they have conveyed a part of Italian culture into the Land of the Rising Sun. Through shared projects, their contribution to the programs and contents of the Italy Pavilion sets out in Japan to intensify the knowledge and awareness of our Country to young and elder generations. The number of Ambassadors will continue to grow, welcoming other outstanding exponents and generating new opportunities for cooperation. JUNKO KOSHINO fashion designer “I would like to contribute to reinforce the cultural exchanges between Italy and Japan, through fashion…

“My works are a tribute to the lost capacity to feel” Takuto Ohta CAUGHT UP IN THE CONSTRAINTS OF GEOLOCATION, the heft of a tradition of crafts deeply rooted in the collective imagination, and the authorial verve of designers like Naoto Fukasawa, Tokujin Yoshioka and Oki Sato, for the Centennials of Japan it isn’t easy to make a mark on the international design scene. The exceptions to this rule are a handful of professionals, with outstanding figures like Fumie Shibata, We+ and Jin Kuramoto, renowned for their recent collaborations with Flexform, Elica and Arflex Japan. The scenario is that of a constellation of opportunities still to be grasped. To paraphrase Takuto Ohta, one of the designers selected for these pages, it is necessary to update the language: there…

Editorial P. 1 Il primo numero dell’anno è interamente dedicato al Giappone e alle relazioni tra cultura giapponese e italiana e viceversa. L’inaugurazione di Expo 2025 Osaka il 13 aprile pv e del Padiglione Italia, progetto di Mario Cucinella in collaborazione con il Commissario Generale Mario Vattani e con Interni media partner, è infatti alle porte. Da qui l’ispirazione della monografia. Nelle pagine a seguire raccontiamo contenuti, protagonisti e finalità del progetto, “simbolo tangibile dell’ingegno, della creatività e della sostenibilità che caratterizzano il nostro Paese”, nelle parole dello stesso Cucinella. Un approfondimento è dedicato al ‘giapponismo’ qui inteso come influenza culturale ed estetica che il Sol Levante ha esercitato sui Maestri del progetto italiano. I protagonisti dell’architettura e del design giapponese illustrano invece perché l’Italia e le aziende italiane rappresentano…

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