International Exhibition of Outdoor Furnishing, SUN,Rimini,Italy 2008SAMP, Pesaro,Italy, 2008 International Furniture ShowPromosedia, Udine,Italy 2008 Italian Chair ExhibitionTriennale, Milan Italy, The Permanent CollectionXYLEXPO 2008 woodworking technologies: Milan ItalyFiera internazionale del mobile, Milan Italy,20082006 it's a special Furniture Fair for De Padova. Special because it coincides with the 50th anniversary since the firm's foundation. De Padova, a protagonist of Italian design, has chosen to tell the story of these 50 years in a book and an exhibit that retraces its history through encounters, interviews, testimonies and above all images. And it does this at the 45th Milan Furniture Fair 2006.
č De Padova: a journey 50 years long
The firm's history in a book
The book is "č DePadova. 50 Years of Design. Intuitions, Passions, Encounters". It is a journey through the firm's history and the story of international design. A history told as in a film that begins in black and white, one summer's day back in 1956, when Maddalena De Padova and her husband Fernando unexpectedly decided to make a journey in Denmark to discover Nordic design. A book rich in encounters and bolts from the blue that interlaces individual adventures with the history of international design, the birth and growth of the firm with the changes in style and tastes in the Italy of the postwar period down to the present.
Charles Eames, George Nelson, Achille Castiglioni, Dieter Rams and Vico Magistretti, are only some of the people that Maddalena De Padova talks of in the opening pages of the volume, masters of design who left their mark on her life, protagonists of the evolution in the style of dwelling. A style that has accompanied and guided the development of Italian design.
The volume, published by Federico Motta, is edited by Didi Gnocchi and also contains two texts: one by Natalia Aspesi, a journalist with the daily "La Repubblica", which reveals the revolutionary impact of De Padova on the tastes of Italians in the `50s and `60s, and the second by Vanni Pasca, a historian of design who holds the Degree Course in Industrial Design at Palermo and analyzes the brand's design features and stylistic hallmark.
An extensive chapter is devoted to the designers and architects who together with Maddalena
De Padova succeeded in anticipating the continuous evolution of taste in homes around the world.
Rich in images drawn from the De Padova archives, the book finally looks at the future projects of the firm, under the aegis of continuity with the unmistakable style of Maddalena De Padova.
A special exhibit
Devised by Migliore + Servetto architetti associati, the exhibit was imagined as a dynamic three-dimensional representation of the contents of the book.
Ico Migliore explains: "The installation is a sort of story, an installation like the tiles of a mosaic that contain images and texts from the book.
We sought a feature that could be repeated to tell the story. In this case it is a prism, an assemblage of mosaic tiles that compose and form a long wall. The dynamism is created by the mirror effect of the prism and the light within each parallelepiped.
Like an undulating movement the light within the boxes, operated by a computerized system, creates images in sequence and in dissolve. The images narrate De Padova through encounters, products, displays, homes.
The dynamism is also created by the interplay of lights and shadows projected onto the ceiling, together with images in movement and drawings of objects. The mirror, reflecting light and adding the images to the space, interacts with the scenario of the store and the products displayed. It is a wave of information that unfolds within a space, which amplifies your perception. It is a vision in dissolve of stories that appear and disappear. "
Novelties 2006
One of the distinctive traits of De Padova has always been to enrich the collection, to renew it without following the fashions. To achieve this it has continued to invest in knowledge and the collaboration of new designers capable of understanding and appreciating the firm's history. The sense and the continuity of the future sought through the signs of memory.
Campo d'oro: Paolo Pallucco and Mireille Rivier
The Campo d'oro table represents an intelligent system of "functional transformism": closed, it appears square, while thanks to two side hinges it is possible to vary the form of the top in different combinations, changing the position of the three trapezoid elements that compose it. Nothing is left to chance:
the expert interplay of a dynamic design is based on the proportional harmony of the trapezoid parts of the top that follow the relationships dictated by the golden section. In the aegis of freedom, flexibility in living, it is a table that evolves, for lunch, work, study.
Spring: Damian Williamson
This is the first project by the young British designer for De Padova. The lightness and simplicity of the lines are the features that best define this stackable chair in solid ash. The design of the back exploits the natural elasticity of the wood.
Belt: Vico Magistretti
The new sofa, available in versions with 2, 3 and 4 places, features a strap in cotton in three different colours that can be combined with the covering fabric, which cuts the cushion at the back in half and constitutes a graphic element in perfect "Magistretti Style".
Tools pių: Lorenz *Kaz
A system of accessories designed to complete the Tools table (by Pierluigi Cerri) which, in the Tools 06 version, is transformed into a wired work surface to meet the new specifications of the office space.
The traditional hierarchical relationships that have always dominated the workplace here give way to dynamic, informal relationships based on the logic of flow and cooperation between the group.
Central dividing elements, padded and upholstered with fabric, desktop trays of various sizes, book-ends in different colours to organize everything required at work.
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