DANESE HISTORY - bruno-wickart.ch€¦ · contributions made by Michele De Lucchi and Richard...

DANESE HISTORYFROM THE ORIGINS TO NOWADAYS

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The history of Danese Milano coincides exactly with the history of Italian design. The important phases, the coming of age and the various challenges that this company has faced show how the pivotal role of ingenious design, the communicative power of objects, the quality of the materials they are made of and the way they are distributed remain constant factors in a journey that, since 1957, has involved some of the most important names in world design, art and architecture. The needs and desires of man, as well as a profound respect for his intellect, are the values that have driven the creativity and experimentation that it takes to develop, not only the products, but also the techniques and processes involved in maintaining the complex balance between culture, authorship and business.

INTRODUCTION

Danese Milano’s packaging has always complimented the clean lines and attention to detail of the pieces contained.


1) 2) Cubo, Bruno Munari, 1957. Ashtray.3) Camicia, Enzo Mari, 1961. Vase.4) Bilancia, Enzo Mari, 1959. Perpetual wall mounted calendar. 5) 16 animali, Enzo Mari, 1957. Puzzle.

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INTRODUCTION


The company was founded by Bruno Danese and Jacqueline Vodoz with the initial helping hand of Franco Meneguzzo. Their common goal was to combine art and design in a long-term project that would be both cultural and industrial. The main players in this first, urgent phase were Bruno Munari and Enzo Mari who immediately set to work with products, multi-media projects, exhibitions, communications campaigns and books. Danese and Vodoz realized that there was room to bring art into everyday life and that this conceptual social revolution would affect the power and role of industrial design.

1) Falkland, Bruno Munari, 1964. Ceiling light and floor lamp.2) Galapagos, Bruno Munari, 1961. Frame.

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1957 • 1969

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1) Lampada esagonale, Bruno Munari, 1959. Ceiling light.2) Lampedusa, Enzo Mari, 1967. Pencil holder. Re-edited in 2015.3) Bambù, Enzo Mari, 1968-1969. Vases. Re-edited in 2015.4) Canarie, Bruno Munari, 1958. Desk set.5) Timor, Enzo Mari, 1976. perpetual calendar.

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1957 • 1969


1957 • 1969

1) Barbados, Angelo Mangiarotti, 1964. Ashtray.2) Ireland, Bruno Munari, 1970. Frame.3) Formosa, Enzo Mari, 1963. Perpetual wall-mounted calendar.

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In this period lighting, furniture, accessories, artistic graphic design, the world of toys, the workplace and the home were no longer abandoned to age-old stereotypes but became a fertile ground, ready to welcome the experimentation of Danese Milano. Another champion of Italian design, Angelo Mangiarotti, joined the team. The company chose to adopt an expansive commercial policy and showed its work at trade fairs and in mono-brand stores throughout the world. This decision was accompanied by great attention to the way in which the work was exhibited which drew it ever closer to the world of art and heralded the imminent invasion of both the domestic and work space by the brand’s exuberant creativity.

In 1970 the exhibition “Contenir, regarder, jouer” opens at the Musée des Arts at the Louvre in Paris featuring many of Danese Milano’s products. The installation is designed by Enzo Mari.

1970 • 1979


1970 • 1979

1) Inside its historic department store of Corso Vittorio Emanuele in the heart of Milan, La Rinascente dedicates an exhibition to the toys produced by Danese Milano (1970)2) Danese Milano intensifies its commercial activity showcasing its products in important stores throughout Europe. Here the display at Leptien, Frankfurt.3) 4) The Wohnzubehoer fair is a strategic opportunity and Danese Milano presents a stand that is full of variety and new ideas.

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1970 • 1979

1) In 1973 Danese Milano invests in an itinerant exhibition that travels to important institutions throughout Europe including the Musée de Design ed D’Art Appliqués Contemporains (MUDAC) in Lausanne, Switzerland.2) 3) First Kreymborg then Frankfurt, the company’s calendar fills up with international fairs.

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1970 • 1979

1) 2) In 1973 the exhibition of toys and art editions arrive at the Museum in Nice.3) In 1974 Bruno Munari designs te exhibition “Ene example de design italien” at the museum of Cassis and dedicated space to a selection of Danese Milano’s products.4) Between 1973 and 1974 the network of mono-brand Danese Milano stores reaches all the way to Japan. A building is constructed in the prefecture of Nagoya in Samayama, which displays the company logo designed by Meneguzzo on its façade.

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1970 • 1979

1) In 1976 Danese Milano is invited to show its products at the Israeli Museum of Jerusalem. Enzo Mari curates this contribution.2) In 1977 Jack Lenor Larsen’s shop is Danese Milano’s most important window in New York City.

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1980 • 1989

This period was marked by the arrival of Achille Castiglioni. The introduction of new products slowed down as the company tried to understand how to face the end of an era that had been both socially and culturally revolutionary. Another phase also began that was driven by the dawn of a new economy and new life styles which coincided with a sudden growth in the number of companies in the same product category, new production techniques and new social contexts to explore.

The North American market becomes strategically important as shown by the commercial brochure for the MSA Trade Show in 1984.


1980 • 1989

1) In the 1980s the company intensifies its commercial exhibition strategy with shows that alternate between museums, galleries and prestigious stores. In 1981 the famous exhibition “A’vos jeux” takes place at the Beaubourg in Paris. 2) In 1982 Danese Milano chooses Castelli to showcase its new products.3) 4) In 1981 Enzo Mari’s solo show at the Italian Institute of Culture in Kyoto provides the perfect occasion to present the vast range of ceramic vases designed by master and produced by Danese Milano.

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1980 • 1989

1) 2) 3) Between 1983 and 1989 Enzo Mari develops a system, complete with panels and photographs, which allows the company to show its history in a range of different exhibitions and contexts. In the photographs, the installations in Milan and Bordeaux.

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1990 • 1999

The 1990s was the most tumultuous decade of Danese Milano’s history. The sale of the company and the difficulty it found in responding to the market with new products that fulfilled the needs and tastes of the times, slowed its rate of development. The unstable events lead to the transfer of most of the historical archive to the Vodoz-Danese foundation that was committed to conserving the historical and artistic patrimony of the company as well as promoting its cultural importance through strategic exhibitions. In 1999 Carlotta De Bevilacqua bought the company and became CEO.

In 1999 the exhibition “Design, Kunst, Spiele” takes place in the vast spaces of the museum of Ludwigshafen


1990 • 1999

1) In 1990 Danese Milano plays an important role in the exhibition “Italiensk Design” at the Design Museum in Copenhagen.2) For Milan’s Salone del Complemento d’Arredi in 1991 Enzo Mari designs a new kind of display system.

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2000 • 2009

The artistic and managerial guidance of architect Carlotta De Bevilacqua put Danese Milano’s foot back on the accelerator. Her contribution was made immediately noticeable by the surge of innovation that inundated the company including a particular attention to new technological challenges, especially with regards to lighting. It was De Bevilacqua who identified the issue of environmental sustainability as not just a priority for the company’s product development but as a necessity and involved internationally renowned designers whose knowledge an aesthetics would help characterize the future of Danese Milano. In the meantime famous innovators like James Irvine, Paolo Rizzato, Yves Behar, intellectual designers like Marco Ferreri and new voices like Francisco Gomez Paz start working with the company.

Carlotta de Bevilacqua with an example of Ina lamp. Behind her are some of Enzo Mari’s “Simboli Sinsemantici”


1) Since the beginning of the 2000s, the -1 floor of the Danese Milano headquarters has been a laboratory for prototyping and product development2) Enzo Mari is the reference for Danese Milano. Carlotta de Bevilacqua has a special relationship with the master, based on comparison and creative exchange.3) Swedish designer Sami Rintala developed a micro interior for Danese Milano. Here with Carlotta de Bevilacqua in the Villa Danese spaces in Milan.

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2000 • 2009


2010 • 2016

Danese Milano transforms into a melting pot of creative languages. Thanks to the cultural and creative inheritance of the great masters and to the approach to production that combines know-how with experimentation, during this period the product range is extended not only by the type of products themselves but also by the sheer number of designers involved. The international names Crasset, Fukasawa, Guixè and Olivares are added to the list of well-known Italian designers already collaborating with Danese Milano. The time passed with this group of creative minds closed a multifaceted and experimental phase in the company’s history, which both broadened its approach to production and re-launched the brand on a global scale.

The productions of Matali Crasset, as weel as Erwitt, Gomez Paz, Lovegrove, Fukasawa contributions, have marked the Danese Milano catalogue of this period.


2017 • 2018

Carlotta de Bevilacqua invited Ron Gilad to be Creative Director. After an initial radical editing of the catalogue that redirected the company’s focus back to a range of products for the home and work space - all characterized by a distinctive design and strong personality – the Israeli designer started to create a collection of contemporary objects that remain explore the poetry and irony of material culture. These characteristics, which are true to the philosophy of the company, can also be found in the contributions made by Michele De Lucchi and Richard Hutten who were invited to collaborate with Danese Milano by Gilad in 2018.

The heritage, the atmosphere and the rooms of Villa Danese have been used by Ron Gilad as an exhibition theatre for the collections he has curated and designed for the company.


2017 • 2019

Starting from the title of the first exhibition held in 2017, “Fragments of life”, the artistic director has put back into circulation the codes of identity of the company founded in 1957: function, innovation and culture.


The intuition of the scale leap has the double purpose of ironising on the monumentalisation of iconic objects in the company catalogue and of presenting itself as new memorable landmarks. In both cases they play with the architecture of the villa. On the façade as well as in the interiors, in the archive photos chosen for the frames and in the animations of illustrations created to be static, Gilad is a croupier of stories.

2017 • 2019


On the shelves, on the tables, on the walls, the objects are displayed in a narration that exalts their relationship with history, the creative process, the typological analysis, the decomposition, the ideal reference, the familiarity with an identity that has been declined by the different authors during the course of the company’s history.

2017 • 2019


2019 • ...

The Danese 2019 collection and the work invested in it can be summarised by the word RESTITCHING, a series of design operations which RELATE to Danese both past and present.

Delicate restitching operations, curated by the new creative director Giulio Iacchetti, to bring out friendship, closeness and empathy between existing and new products, also investigating areas never explored before by Danese (like the body accessory).

Twelve new projects and re-releases, from different categories but linked by shared meaning, by the cultural values of the Danese project.

Elements that create transversal links to the collection, to the designers and to the times, complementing and balancing each other in proximity of function and use.

The opening of the showroom in Milano, Piazza San Nazaro in Brolo for the launch of the 2019 Danese collection curated by Giulio Iacchetti.


RESTITCHING like the Matua bowl, the Lingotto ice cube tray, or products that interact with each other and with families of existing objects.They are projects that are reminiscent of others, with shared design features: RELATING. The Ipe desk set that incorporates the historic Putrella tray in a play of scale and suggestions linked to the stunning iron beam section design.RE-RELEASES like the Cicladi vases, Giglio letter opener, Kurili salad tongs, the Madera champagne bucket.

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2019 • ...

TAU is an infra-finger ornament, that settles comfortably between two digits of a hand, instead of enclosing a finger. The geometry is reminiscent of a metal section beam and pays an elegant tribute to Enzo Mari’s Putrella tray.


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EXPLORATIONS, with the Sponge lamp that proposes a direct dialogue with the plant element. This original sponge diffuser welcomes light and nature and is an element that can occupy various positions, suspended, hung from a rope or placed on the floor.

DANESE HISTORY - bruno-wickart.ch€¦ · contributions made by Michele De Lucchi and Richard...

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