We have designed a large installation around the launch of the new mini-pacement.
In essence we wanted to create a sculpture that shows the three-dimensionality of the
development of mini as a design product.
It's an idea created by people in dialogue with engineers.
It travels through space, breaking boundaries and at the end of the day become innovation
for the road.
And this installation really comes from why design is important to mini as a brand and
it's just a wonderful experience to see the installation in the environment of the Furniture
Fair.
I'm with Joseph Griemann who is the editor-in-chief of Domus magazine here in Milan.
Joseph tell us a little bit about your thoughts on Milan this year.
What have you seen, what's inspiring, what's happening?
I think it's interesting that at the Triennale the annual design museum exhibition is very
much on the theme of the great masters in the past and kind of Italian design and almost
kind of searching for the comfort in its own history and Italy trying to remind itself
that there is something there.
I think everybody realises that possibly an era is drawing to an end and a new era is
beginning.
So it's a nostalgic year then perhaps?
A little bit, yeah I think crisis can engender nostalgia especially when it's so protracted.
What is the mood in the design community here outside of this week?
I think there's a lot of uncertainty and the political situation there to leave course
is not encouraging.
I think there's also kind of a collective hope that a new idea will be born, something
you will emerge.
And is that just a hope or is there any idea about what that new era might be?
Some hope that new technologies will bring that era in.
The digital technologies that we talked about last year, they lend themselves also to being
combined with traditional knowledge regarding materials that can craft hands-on skills of
the artisans that exist in this region are unrivaled anywhere else.
I think some manufacturers are really seriously beginning to think about how they can engage
a completely different model of design industry.
Is it a system that can move with the times?
It can.
It's not a system that's predisposed to naturally move in that direction and it's one of the
paradoxes of Italy that on the one hand it's completely, you know it's one of the most
innovative creative countries in the world undisputedly and on the other hand the culture
of bureaucracy, the actual framework, governmental framework, bureaucratic framework, economic
framework of the nation is actually, one would be forgiven for actually thinking that it
had been designed to suppress any sort of create vital energy of creating something
new.
It's really something, aspects of it are really, really beyond belief.
I mean London is an interesting case study because London, a lot of its wealth in recent
times has come from the financial services which have taken a big hit obviously because
of the crisis but that's almost been replaced now by this sort of fast growing digital community.
I think that the reason that sprung up in London is a direct consequence of London being
one of the great education centres of the world.
It's got some of the best universities and the best schools.
The great tradition that was born here was not born from a tradition of schools, it's
actually the direct contact between the masters and craftsmen and it's almost an apprenticeship
model which is really, really different from London model for example and that's something
that now is in a little bit of a crisis because it's not something that's as easy to perpetuate
and the world has moved a little bit more towards being aligned with the schools model.
This system of apprenticeships hasn't really bred a new generation of designers has it?
I mean the Milanese companies have survived by importing talent from elsewhere but does
that matter, does it matter that there's not great designers living here?
I don't think it necessarily matters because I don't think you can expect to survive by
perpetuating the past and I think the Milan still has an undisputed role as the design
capital of the world and as long as it's able to look out to the world and kind of capture
and be the arbiter in a way of what is interesting and what's happening and what's innovative
in the design world I think that's really, that's something that can be equally important
as simply being the product of a lot of small companies.
