Metaphysical Club

Domus Academy launches a new way of conceiving knowledge production in creative schools inspired by the art of conversation where scientists debate crucial issues.

If the school were a novel, it would be a novel of ideas and conversations, just like schools were for our ancestors, when being a student meant being part of an endless debate directed at becoming better, more aware and stronger.
This is the Domus Academy Metaphysical Club’s starting point. Conceived and managed by the Creative Director, Gianluigi Ricuperati, in collaboration with Francesca Vargiu, the Metaphysical Club is a new project among international schools of art, design and fashion which involves a group of individuals, thirteen, including some of the most important international personalities in the modern world of culture and education. The Club will meet several time a year in Milan to identify the themes guiding research and educational paths of the school over the following months and will meet the students for a series of lectures, workshops, reviews and specific real projects.
Hans-Ulrich Obrist, curator and director at the Serpentine Gallery London and a global reference in contemporary art and culture; Alice Rawsthorn, the most prominent design critic worldwide, leader writer for the New York Times and the author of numerous books; Jefferson Hack, founder of Dazed & Confused, Another Magazine, Nowness.com and a central figure in the formulation of the most sophisticated ways of representing fashion over the past twenty years; Gilles Clément – together with Coloco and Miguel Georgieff, a thinker who has changed our points of view on the urban landscape and the plant universe; Patricia Urquiola, extraordinary and internationally successful designer and architect, who has shaped the Domus Academy’s Master in Interior & Living Design over the past year; Joseph Grima, curator and researcher, former chief editor of Domus Magazine and who will co-direct the 2015 Chicago Architecture Biennial, 2015 City Ideas in New York, in addition to city of Matera’s program as European Capital of Culture in 2019; Leanne Shapton, illustrator and writer whose work is featured regularly in leading American newspapers, author of a selection of ‘narratives for images’ which break through conventional barriers between artistic disciplines and writing; Clemens Weisshaar, who over recent years has created some of the most technologically refined design and communication projects together with Reed Kram, working with Audi and institutions such as the Fondazione Prada; Manfredo di Robilant, who has worked closely with Rem Koolhaas to formulate the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale, the most controversial and successful, inspiring research on ‘Fundamentals’; Adam Thirlwell, novelist and intellectual, whose books are published in various languages and global key opinion leader in design and culture; Benedetto Camerana, architect and president of the International Museum of the Automobile in Turin, author of projects for Ferrari and Alfa Romeo; Cristiano Seganfreddo, artistic director of the Marzotto Prize and tireless contemporary example of what it means to design in business and for corporate culture; and finally, Italo Rota, visionary and highly-educated designer and architect, Scientific Director of Laureate Italian Art&Design Education author of the exhibition installation curated by Germano Celant for Expo 2015 in Milan.
Together with the Metaphysical Club, Domus Academy is due to launch another research and project group, the Tomorrows’ Club, which focuses on some of the young below 35 years old talents in Italian and international design, fashion and curatorship. A hothouse of minds that Domus Academy is investing in and that will work together with both the Metaphysical Club and the school’s students and faculty.

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