The topics addressed in the April 2020 issue of Domus focus on the role of design and designers. David Chipperfield in his editorial urges the design world to rediscover its role and purpose through beauty. The guest editor explains that “once again it is fundamentally necessary to question the role and capacity of design in our world”.
Domus 1045 on newsstands: “In praise of beauty, in the face of crisis”
In this issue: David Chipperfield meets Renzo Piano; Lina Ghotmeh Architecture’s Stone Garden in Lebanon; the work of British artist Rachel Whiteread and more. Browse the gallery and discover the contents of the April issue.
Text Deyan Sudjic. Photo © Angus Mill. Courtesy of Galleria Nilufar
Text Jonathan Keates. Photo © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Marquand Collection, Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1889
Text Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani. Photo © The Art Institute of Chicago / Art Resource, NY/ Scala, Florence
Text David Chipperfield. Photo Giovanni Del Brenna
Text Mona Fawaz, Carla Aramouny. Photo Iwan Baan
Text Paola Antonelli. Photo © Jason Evans.
Text Jasper Morrison e Francesca Picchi. Photo courtesy of Cecilie Manz Studio
Text Jay Merrick. Photo © Edifice / Bridgeman Images
Text Yasmeen Lari. Photo courtesy of The Heritage Foundation
Text Alexander Schwartz. Photo IOEB Universität Stuttgart 2019
Text Fulvio Irace. Photo from Domus 433
Text Jonathan Griffin. Photo Kyodo News via Getty Images
Author Thomas Demand
View Article details
- La redazione di Domus
- 03 April 2020
The Agenda this month focuses on the future of design, in a world of limited resources and excessive consumption. Deyan Sudjic talks about the optimism of industrial designers who are increasingly turning to the social aims of the profession; Jonathan Keates argues for “a space for beauty as an end in itself”, outlining its complex relationship with the transformation of the idea of ethics; Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani reflects on consumer society and necessity an immediate paradigm shift.
David Chipperfiled meets Renzo Piano in his studio, who speaks of flexibility as a “moral question” and not as a technical fact. Mona Fawaz and Cara Aramouny review this month’s “Grand Project”: Stone Garden, the extraordinary mixed-use building in Beirut's harbour district by Lina Ghotmeh Architecture.
In the Design and Art section, Paola Antonelli narrates design as ‘synthesis’, and the need for agile designers to grasp and protect the ambitions of our vision and to put together the necessary interdisciplinary working groups. Jasper Morrison and Francesca Picchi invite seven young designers to illustrate the references that inspired their design approach. Jay Merrick dialogues with British artist Rachel Whiteread, author of ambitious concrete sculptures. In this month’s “Drawn closer” column , Yasmeen Lari tells us about the help given to rural communities to rebuild their villages after an earthquake, and questions the order of conventional design processes. In “Making Architecture”, Alexander Schwartz investigates Fernand Pouillon’s stone buildings and considers the qualities shared by both ruins and construction sites. Fulvio Irace ends Reflections of this issue by recalling Domus 433, where Ettore Sottsass presents his collection of furniture for Poltronova.
In the magazine returns the section dedicated to current events Diario, where among the more traditional pages dedicated to children’s designs, readings and openings, stands out a report on the works of Chinese artist Zhijun Wang, who disassembles and transforms sneakers into surreal protective masks.
We then continue with Manuel Orazi who recalls the figure of Vittorio Gregotti, who died due to complications caused by the contagion with Confid-19, and Silvana Annicchiarico who, as every month, presents three young designers that, despite everything, do not want to give up. In the pages of art, Simona Bordone takes a tour of Villa Cerruti, the home museum of one of the most important Italian collectors, while Valentina Petrucci interrogates Bernardo Siciliano, the Italian painter son of the former president of RAI who has chosen to think from New York.
This month’s section ends with a coffee that Walter Mariotti had with Marco Morganti, CEO of Banca Prossima, the most important reality dedicated to impact investment, who explains how, especially in certain circumstances, nothing is easy but everything is possible.
In a climate of rising pessimism, Deyan Sudjic considers the dualities of design and the optimism of industrial designers who are increasingly returning to the social purpose of the profession as promoted by William Morris and Victor Papanek. However, an over-emphasis on process and research while all areas of life are increasingly digitised risks undermining the cultural value of making and interacting with the physical.
Jonathan Keates argues in favour of “a place for beauty unconditional on its taking a subordinate role alongside the useful and the good”, tracing its complex relationship with changing ideas of morality.
Conspicuous consumption “has also claimed architecture and the city”, explains Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani, despite it being “the most solid of all artefacts”. An immediate paradigmatic shift towards “congenial frugality” is required to curb this corrosive process and its impact on how we treat each other.
For Renzo Piano flexibility is “a question of ethics” rather than a technical issue. Speaking from his vibrant studio overlooking the Ligurian Sea, Piano provides an insight into his passion for construction and loyal collaborations, which are among the defining characteristics of his timeless practice. Each new building is treated as a fresh opportunity to embed social values and the process of making the heart of the design process.
Mona Fawaz and Cara Aramouny review this month’s “Grand project”: Lina Ghotmeh’s striking Stone Garden mixed-use tower in the Port of Beirut area. In contrast to profit-driven speculative developments elsewhere in the metropolis, the building “embraces the city’s eclectic, layered morphologies and sets its new, elegant yet unassuming presence on them”.
According to Paola Antonelli, senior curator of design at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, design is ‘synthesis’. Agile designers are needed to grasp and maintain our visionary ambitions in times of change, and to convene the interdisciplinary teams that will be needed to make them reality
Jasper Morrison and Francesca Picchi invite seven young designers to illustrate a project of their own with the references that fueled their design approach – a celebration of “ideas as a living system” around which a design takes shape.
Continuing our exploration of the boundaries between architecture and art, Jay Merrick visits the studio of British artist Rachel Whiteread, whose ambitious sculptural works “are composed as forms haunted by the same kinds of historical and human phenomena that many architects are attuned to.”
When Yasmeen Lari first took on the task of helping rural communities to rebuild after an earthquake, it soon became clear that issuing drawings would not work. This month’s “Drawn closer” column questions the order of conventional design processes.
For “Making architecture,” Alexander Schwarz explores Fernand Pouillon’s stone buildings using them to consider how we read the construction of a building in its completed form, and to consider the revealing qualities shared by ruins and building sites alike.
Fulvio Irace ends this issue’s “Reflections” by retrieving Domus 433 (December 1965) in which Ettore Sottsass presents his furniture collection for Poltronova. The article is evidence of a shift in communication of products, which matched the design for the first time without the go-between of words.
The 59th edition of the Milan Furniture Fair was originally due to take place in the week of 20 April, 2020. On 23 February, the trade fair was postponed until 16-21 June, 2020, leaving many design manufacturers, ready to present their new products to the world, with the dilemma of having to put off the launch until June or to concentrate on an alternative. Not all have responded in the same way and in the collection of furniture objects presented in the following pages you will find new armchairs, rocking chairs and consoles, previews of what will be presented to the market over the forthcoming weeks alongside additions to existing ranges and new finishes for collections presented at the international fairs at the beginning of the year.