A few weeks before the start of Milan Design Week, we met Maria Porro in the course of a non-stop day: before the interview she was the protagonist of a photo shoot, immediately afterwards she was meeting another journalist. Always with a (contagious) smile on her face.
This is the restart year for the Salone. Has our way of seeing and experiencing design changed?
With respect to the pre-pandemic period our perception of the home has changed. We have rediscovered that the quality of the places we inhabit can influence the quality of our relationships inside them. This also extends into the focus on sustainability, a healthful environment in domestic spaces, and limitation of energy consumption. At the same time, these two years have altered the way we travel, the way we utilize public spaces and sit down in restaurants, the way we work. In this sense, furniture has a responsibility, which also becomes an opportunity to redesign, to reinterpret places. The Salone del Mobile will definitely reflect this evolution.
With respect to the 1960s, how have things changed?
First the Salone was an exhibition of products on white platforms. Nothing more. today it has the chance to start over, to design an architectural context, a museum space, a surreal presentation. The mode of narration is no longer centered on the product, but also on the type of house, the overall proposal a company wants to make. The way of addressing the audience has changed as well. Today answers are needed for a series of question: how is it made, who made it, where did they make it? It is an idea of transmission of the values that lie behind production. The Salone is a big magnet that brings with it people, thinkers, interpreters, buyers, curious onlookers… There is an entire community that arrives during that week. What has changed is precisely the rediscovery of that dimension of the ‘here and now.’ The Salone is first of all an experience, being all together for the same reason in the same space, at the same time.
What are the key words of this Salone?
The Salone is an urbanist, it designs streets and squares, and then the companies insert their contents. I think one key word is precisely this one: ‘content.’ Then there is a rather worn-out term, ‘sustainability.’ Which in any case represents a big commitment on the part of the entire industry, which in recent years has accelerated the transition in this direction. The Salone also wants to help to accelerate this process: hence the large installation by Mario Cucinella, which will definitely be an interesting instrument. Then there is a third word: ‘encounter.’ The Salone has always been a builder of bridges, and it is here that even very distant worlds have begun to speak to each other.
What does design give to the world?
Design is a very ancient thing, it is man’s approach to the world. It is the idea of inventing a function and giving it a form, someone more important than I am once said. It is intercepting a need and finding a solution. Design gives the world solutions, and when they are intelligent they last in time.
The two events the Salone has organized for this iteration, Design with Nature by Mario Cucinella and the Magic Box – are they two statements of intent?
Actually we will also be doing a big birthday party, which I would like to open to all, but they won’t let me… The Magic Box is an installation at Palazzo Reale that remains open for two weeks, so everyone can see it. It uses the language of cinema to talk about design, a cross-pollination that is very interesting to explore. Ten directors (plus one, a surprise) interpret key words. Design with Nature, inside the fair, sets out to act as an accelerator: sustainability, as we were saying, has become indispensable, not just a buzzword but a project all the companies are approaching in a very serious way. But major transformations need collective effort, and in the case of furniture this calls for effort in the chain of supply and production. Cucinella’s thinking starts right here. There will be a large materials library with sustainable substances, and a part on the role of the home, a cell that can modify a more complex organism like a building or an entire city. Then there will be lectures, talks, gatherings. It is an attempt to create a different type of culture: because the main driver of this change is the demand for sustainability on the part of the consumer.
