OfficineCalderai

#26 At SaloneSatellite, Vittorio Venezia presents the collection OfficineCalderai: lamps and furniture realised with Palermo’s artisans. #salone2015

Via Calderai has always been a place of research, experimentation and an incessant construction site of ideas. This corner of Palermo, in fact, is full of memory, but at the same time, it is an active part of the city, a giant workshop frequented daily by all the inhabitants to fix what’s broken or run-down at home.

Top: Nino Ciminna, one of the oldest artisan of via Calderai in Palermo, at work to realise the lamp collection 4decimi by Vittorio Venezia. Above: via Calderai workshops

This road is therefore a creative square, a social space, where people and artisans meet to give new life to objects, creating new products. The project OfficineCalderai was born here, composed of two collections, 4decimi and Ferro.

Vittorio Venezia, OfficineCalderai 4decimi collection

4decimi consists of twelve pendant lamps inspired by the sculptural simplicity of metal containers and traditional tools on the western Sicily. The lights are made from steel 4/10, entirely cut, bent and hand-welded by the eighty-six Nino Ciminna in the oldest laboratory of the street.

Vittorio Venezia, OfficineCalderai 4decimi collection

Ferro consists of furniture and accessories inspired by grids braziers still produced and sold in the workshops of via Calderai. The collection includes five seats, a table, six holders for flowerpots and a doorstop. Each piece is made from iron plates of 5 mm or 10 mm, CNC cut and hand-soldered by one of the youngest craftsmen in the area

Vittorio Venezia, OfficineCalderai. Enzo Zerbo, one of the youngest via Calderai’s artisan, at work on the Ferro collection

OfficineCalderai proposes a rediscovery of manual skills, materials and traditional forms wherein we identifies multiple intrinsic preciousness able to add a value to things. Handmade objects, in fact, ipso facto acquire a soul, because they involve the spirit of those who made them.

Vittorio Venezia, OfficineCalderai, Ferro, stool
Vittorio Venezia, OfficineCalderai, Ferro, side table
Vittorio Venezia, OfficineCalderai, Ferro, side table
Vittorio Venezia, OfficineCalderai, Ferro, left flower stand, right door stopper
Vittorio Venezia, OfficineCalderai. Enzo Zerbo at work
Vittorio Venezia, OfficineCalderai. Nino Ciminna at work