Superstudio Più turns twenty-five. It debuted with Giulio Cappellini and other designers who would go on to become landmarks on the international design scene. Can you tell us the milestones in the evolution of Superstudio Più?
The year 2000: the opening of Superstudio Più in the factory that had just been bought by General Electric and the sudden decision of Giulio Cappellini, who, having been invited to visit the space, decided in an instant to move his presentation at the Salone del Mobile there just a month later. This was the beginning of the revolution.
The year 2001: the real inauguration, under the title of Design Connection, with the large and innovative presentation of the Cappellini company and its young avant-garde designers, and with the Via collective, the French group that promotes new talents, brought to me by Cristina Morozzi, plus some other events in the area, kicking off the widespread design in the neighborhood.
The year 2009: the transformation in a cultural and emotional sense of the design event at Superstudio takes place with the change of title to Temporary Museum of New Design and the claim ‘less fair and more museum’.
Year 2015: change of name and perspective. The event becomes the Superdesign Show, in line with the trend that goes beyond traditional design related to furniture and the form/function pair to eclectically enter all everyday objects, from toothbrushes to sex toys to automobiles, freeing customs of kitsch, playfulness, humor, imagination and technology in all senses. From museum to show: since then, the new event has been spectacular, pop, experiential, experimental, futuristic, open to young people and to emerging and distant worlds, with a focus on the Far East, in full swing.
How and why did Cappellini choose Superstudio, which at the time was used exclusively for fashion?
I was linked to Cappellini by a friendship that began when we worked together on Donna Design, the magazine that was part of Donna and that I edited in the 1980s. The fashion citadel that began to transform the Tortona area was the first Superstudio 13, a short distance away. The new Superstudio Più had bigger, more complex ambitions. I think Giulio fell in love with it at first sight, because he shared the basic idea. Since then he has also become our art director, with the feeling that we always think the same way, even from a distance.
Fuorisalone is often described as too big, too dispersed; what do you think?
I think yes, we exaggerate. It’s not easy to maintain quality when you clash with quantity. Messages get confused, lines get lost, excessive competition is bad, control is impossible, the thousands of events are incomprehensible. All that the city has gained in terms of attractiveness, interest, uniqueness, culture, is in danger of turning into a home-grown Oktoberfest, where the main thing is the hunt for free appetizers and gadgets. A risk that was already touched and overcome after the excess of success in the first years. Which is now recurring exponentially.
Throughout your career, you have been very involved in fashion. What do you see as the main points of contact between fashion and design?
Certainly the search: for beauty, for the new, for what is right, for uniqueness, for creativity, for happiness. The path of fashion and design tells about the society of the moment, about progress, about the ability to create, about human genius. Now we must be careful not to make the same mistakes and avoid the same dangers of crisis.
Superstudio Più celebrates its 25th anniversary with a bold concept for this mdw’s Superdesign Show: Happiness – Direction, Challenge, Vision. How do you see the concept of happiness being realized through design?
I was looking for a theme that would give us hope in these dark times. ‘Happiness’ seemed the most succinct answer. Our homes, work environments, and places of leisure are our world. When they give us beauty, comfort, serenity, pleasure, through the furnishings and objects of which they are composed, that’s when ‘design’ – but also craftsmanship, architecture, human technology – gives us happiness.
Do you have any plans or dreams for the future?
A dream: to stop and do everything that I have not been able to do while working all the time. A project: to lay the groundwork for Superstudio to continue to grow and reach the 50 year mark (it’s already 43) with the second generation of the family at the helm. And maybe 100, which I will see from heaven.
