Nina’s magic kingdom

In the second year of her Nilufar Depot, Nina Yashar proposes 20+ contemporary pieces in unusual surroundings. #MDW2016

Constantly on the lookout for new talents that interpret her personal vision of contemporary design and with a 1500 sqm space on three levels to renew, the Italian-Iranian collector and gallery owner has broadened her designer portfolio this year. More than 20 new pieces were shown alongside the large collection of classic designs amassed over more than 30 years in the business.

Nina Yashar, Nilafur Depot, Fuorisalone 2016

Carpets are her overriding passion and the most dominant presence gathered in a stunning composition in the nave that couples vintage specimens with three precious silk and wool tapestries dating from the mid-16th century, fluctuating in the air. The boxes arranged all around mix and match new contemporary pieces, vintage furnishings, the odd antique, Sicilian dressing tables and tapestries. The cadence of the boxes is broken by cubic architecture designed by Roberto Baciocchi–Baciocchi Associati containing the Mirror Room, a fine and elegant dining room the colour of which dictates the leitmotif of everything in the room, entered through a doorway with a brass finish.

The gallery has allocated a special space to one of the youngest designers present, Federico Peri. The pieces in his collection of living units revisit the world of industrial furniture – with which the designer has been in contact since childhood – and take on a new connotation via the use of finely crafted materials, becoming objects for display and use.

They include his Shapes pendant lighting, Scaffale d’arte shelves with lighting, Biblioteca Itinerante seat with shelving, Panchetta seat, Living in a chair relaxation/reading unit and Anello coffee table. An industrial trolley on wheels becomes a seat, a warehouse shelf turns into a desk, a ladder becomes a bookcase and a mix of industrial objects form a mobile reading unit. Precious brass, marble, velvet, leather and glass detailing enhances the collection, giving it a strongly conceptual connotation without neglecting function and references to 1950s’ design.

Lindsey Adelman presents a sophisticated selection of ceiling and floor lamps that are gilded globes of hand-blown glass suspended on brass structures, the Fungus mirrors and the Cherry Bomb Fungus mirror – although displayed in several places, they are at their finest alongside the Gio Ponti designs. Another surprising piece is the Urmia table by Massimiliano Locatelli, produced with concrete and resin using an experimental technique inspired by the Persian lake it is named after, an example of constant evolution because its salty waters quickly evaporate so that it is constantly shrinking and making more space for dry land.