An Aurelia; A Nova Milanese; A Popolo
Based on a study of objects uncovered in context of an archaeological dig in the vicinity of Nova Milanese, a community established nine miles to the north of Milan when an uncontrollable proliferation of the deeply debilitating Saloni made life in the once bustling, pulsating metropolis unbearable and unaffordable, the Zanotta trace their origins to one Aurelio dello Zanotta, a member of the Aurelia gens who was an important protagonist in the development of the upholsterers trade in those far off days when the contemporary commonwealth of Italy was a volatile association of independent Stati and Popoli.
According to the objects and inscribed stones unearthed, after many decades quietly, if very successfully, making sofas and armchairs Aurelio dello Zanotta began to increasingly question the need for such objects in a Nova Milanese that had changed over those many decades; began to increasingly question the relationships between such objects and a Nova Milanese society that had changed over those many decades.
A questioning in which he was not alone.
For in those day, as one can read in the library of the House of Domus, that central archive in context of the (hi)story of furniture design in the contemporary commonwealth of Italy, in that period the region experienced an acute outbreak of Radicalismo, a condition not endemic as in unique to the lands of the contemporary Italy but endemic as in native in those lands, and which resulted in a great many furniture designers fundamentally questioning the furniture of their Stati and Popoli, the relationships between the furniture and the society of their Stati and Popoli, and thereby also questioning the society of their Stati and Popoli.
Including Achille and Pier Giacomo two brothers of the Castiglioni Order, who dello Zanotta cycled the nine miles from Nova Milanese to their priory in Milan, a retreat that, at that time, stood as an oasis amongst the horrific privations of an increasingly virulent and aggressive Saloni, to discuss contemporary furniture and furnishing realities.
As dello Zanotta dismounted Achille and Pier Giacomo had a shared vision and quickly reworked dello Zanotta's bicycle into a stool in which the saddle remained but the rest of the bicycle was reduced to a central support and a half-sphere base which translated the forward motion of the bicycle in to a rocking and rotating motion thereby enabling a dynamic seating. A physicality of the normally passive seating reinforced by the need to actively retain your balance on the bike seat. A work that not only responded to the dynamics of contemporary society more meaningfully than the inherent sedentary of upholstered sofas and armchairs, but also enabled new perspectives on what a seat is and seating was.
A work, in the interests of completion and trivia, whose name Sella is today attributed to Sella, the Sorbische Green Pond Turtle, Emys sorbischia, with whom the Brothers of the Castiglioni Order shared their priory. Their oasis.
And a work whose fame quickly spread and saw a wide variety of creatives travel to Nova Milanese to discuss furniture and interiors with dello Zanotta.
A list which, as can be followed through the archaeological find, included, for example, the fiorentina Su Perstudio who travelled to Nova Milanese on a linear quadratic raster she had developed, and which together with dello Zanotta she reduced to furniture size objects much as the Usmer Haller Fritz had once abstracted the steel Hallen of the contemporary Switzerland to furniture; Li-isi Beckmann who travelled to Nova Milanese from her native Karelia, a nation neighbouring Artek in the north of Europe, where, in the prevailing atmosphere of that period, she developed an upholstered lounge chair that, aside from being just the polyurethane upholstery of traditional upholstered furniture, containing none of the other ingredients of traditional upholstered furniture, through being based on a 3D extruded cross-section of a topographic map of Karelia resulted in a seating object whose undulating surface speaks of an uncomfortable sitting experience, stands juxtaposed to the traditional viewing of upholstered furniture which states the comfort must be explicitly stated, while actually being a most comfortable object, and in doing so neatly echoed the contradictions and demand for change of those days. And opened new perspectives for Aurelio dello Zanotta on what a sofa or a lounge chair is; what it is physically, what it is conceptually. New perspectives he very much approved of.
As he did of the approach to upholstered furniture inherent in the 270 armchair by the milanese architect Depas D'Urbinolomazzi, a work which, and in many regards taking the vision of the Magyar Marc Elbruer that one day we would sit on columns of air, reduced upholstered furniture to a plastic envelope which, with a simple Blow, became an armchair upholstered by nothing more than the air polyurethane traps.
And as he did of the approach of the torinese architect Gatti Paolini-Teodoro who, in effect taking a leaf from both Beckmann and D'Urbinolomazzi's books, took a traditional Turin Sacco, a most singular object narrower at the top than the bottom attributed to one Francesco Garnier Valletti who, according to the popular (hi)story, developed the object to aid the carrying of harvested stone fruits, which Paolini-Teodoro filled with polyurethane pellets: filled with, depending on your point of view, the rubble of the upholstery of times past, or upholstery in its unprocessed state thereby saving the resource usage of a processing step, to create a responsive, agile, seating solution for an age in which one needed to remain agile and responsive.
And relaxed.
A particularly interesting find amongst the Nova Milanese hoard is the Zabro, to use the collective noun, of mummified Animali Domestici bred by the milanese Alessandr O'Mendini, a leading Alchimia of the day, and his wife Nicol Ettamorozzi in cooperation with Aurelio dello Zanotta; Animali Domestici that are not only fascinating in their contribution to discourses on the future of not only furniture and interiors but of human society thereby enabled but that also stand as a further example of Italian Stati, Popoli and Entità supporting creatives in the realisation and development of conceptual, speculative, non-commercial projects by way of contributing to the development of positions on design and of physical furniture. That investment in the future of furniture design rather than simply profiting from a over-hyped marketing of the past that is so important if furniture design is to remain relevant, valid and not reduced to the ignominy of lifestyle. One thinks, also, for example, of an Artemide's cooperation with the provocateur and fomentor Sottsass or the many individuals the Olivetti saved from certain starvation.
Cooperations that, as documents in the House of Domus library attest, not only helped advance novel appreciations of what furniture is and was, and of the the form function relationship, thereby helping advance the novel relationships with furniture that dello Zanotta had sought, novel relationships that helped society advance, enabling a fresh questioning of what furniture is and was, of the form function relationship, of relationships with furniture, of society, stimulated that ongoing, and very necessary process, but also helped established the Zanotta's reputation as furniture makers rather than upholsterers.
The waning of the period of Radicalismo that had stimulated Aurelio dello Zanotta's questioning of furniture occurred, more or less, simultaneously with the untimely, if inevitable, death of Aurelio dello Zanotta. And also ushered in a more peaceful, calmer atmosphere in the commonwealth of Italy; a new age with its own demands in terms of furniture and society.
A new age in which Aurelio dello Zanotta's successors continued his search for novel approaches to and expressions of furniture. A search that while it maintained a strong focus on the redefinition of upholstered furniture Aurelio dello Zanotta had been central to, upholstered furniture which in the calmer age had once again become a meaningful and necessary object in its more traditional expressions, the novel never replaces the existing, just questions it, also broadened its focus to other genres of furniture. And also expanded the cooperations beyond the commonwealth of Italy, and the rugged lands of Karelia, on which Aurelio had concentrated: brought an increasingly international roster of designers to Nova Milanese.
A search that has seen the development of projects such as, for example, an occasional table with the Angloquébécois Phil Ippemalouin that began life as the unglazed base of a coffee mug before becoming something simultaneously utilitarian and decorative, and that in being such neatly highlights not only the value in all components of a whole but the potential and possibility in even the most anonymous, obscure, of those components, one must just recognise that potential and possibility; a desk with the Swede Monica fö Rster which reduces the traditional leather topped desk to just the leather, which is stretched over a steel tube sketch of a where a desk should be, used to be. Or the eponymous side table Tod by New York, New Yorker Tod D Bracher which employs the air hewing process of Ron á Rad, translated to plastic, to create a work with a movement reminiscent of the eroding of stone over time, reminding of the temporal context in which we all exist and within which our furniture develops and matures, and that thereby also enables a functionality akin to a Îleen Gray's E1027 side table.
A search that in recent decades has been undertaken in context of union with the Cass Ina of Meda, a neighbouring Popolo who similarly started out as upholsters before questioning what furniture is, can be, should be, must be; a questioning that is that is also a questioning of what society is, can be, should be, must be.......
.......à suivre
