Casalinghe di Tokyo

#129 Inspired by hand signs and Bruno Munari’s Speak Italian. The Fine Art of the Gesture. Six ceramic plates showcase the most Italian of gestures in Stereotypism. #salone2015

Palazzo Litta is one of Milan’s most important baroque mansions and was commissioned by Count Bartolomeo Arese to the architect Francesco Maria Ricchino around the mid-17th century. It was recently refurbished by Michele De Lucchi to create apartments overlooking Via Illica and Via Brentano, and gathered around a small internal garden. For Design Week, it was the venue for a collective of up-and-coming young brands.

Among these and in the kitchen of Apartment 1, we were struck, by a display centred on the art of dining created by Casalinghe di Tokyo featuring the Stereotypism dinnerware collection – a ceramic narration of the most Italian of gestures and based on Bruno Munari’s Speak Italian. The Fine Art of the Gesture.

Behind the brand is fashion photographer Alice Schillaci and its name pays homage to Japan and a term dear to Munari: asobi meaning let’s play. The Stereotypism plates are also generated by playfulness. Produced in ceramic covered with majolica in Nove (Vicenza) by expert craftspeople, they were decorated by two contemporary artists. Lucio Bolognesi designed the figurative motif of the closed hand – a typically Italian interrogative gesture – and Martina Merlini created the six abstract motifs accompanying the former, and strictly consistent in style and colour.

The setting was designed in collaboration with Chinese artist Mi Dong and the architect Paolo Ceresatto, who helped construct the exhibition structures, the sideboard and the kitchen top.