Dispatch from Milan: 'Where Architects Live'

Shigeru Ban, Daniel Libeskind, and Kartell CEO and Salone president Claudio Luti at the Where Architects Live exhibition.

More than any other furniture fair, the Salone del Mobile is the place for furniture manufacturers and product designers to introduce their latest creations. But it is also the place where practitioners from all fields of design converge each year for one week in April. Architects have a strong presence at the Milan fair, and the Salone recognizes that. This year, it organized an exhibit in one of the fairground pavilions to showcase the homes of eight renowned architects including Mario Bellini, David Chipperfield, Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas (designers of the fairgrounds), Zaha Hadid, Marcio Kogan, Daniel Libeskind, Studio Mumbais Bijoy Jain, and recently-named 2014 Pritzker Prize laureate Shigeru Ban.

Photo Franco Chimenti

A maquette of the Fuksases' installation for Where Architects Live.

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Several of the participating architects visited the exhibit for the first time today, accompanied by Kartell CEO and Salone president Claudio Luti. Each architect is featured in a video interview within a dedicated space representing their home. David Chipperfieldspeaking from his apartment in Berlin, which he has maintained along with an office in the city after completing the Neues Museumexplains that when it comes to architecture, It doesnt matter if it is a house or not. You make places where you want to be.

From the stark white interior of Bellinis booth to the dominantand what proved to be hazardous for some visitorswater feature of Jains, the exhibit speaks equally to the intimate objects one surrounds themselves with and the location each architect chooses to call home, whether immersed in the Indian countryside like Jain or overlooking Paris Place des Vosges like the Fuksases. For some, like Ban, who spends as much time in the air as on the ground, home can be what you least expect. I have an apartment in Tokyo and one in Parisevery week, I travel between the two cities, Ban explains. When I am alone, on a plane with no phone calls, that is when I feel at home.

Bellini is known equally for his product design for Kartell, Cassina, and Artemide, and architectural projects including the Islamic Arts gallery he designed with Rudy Ricciotti inside the Cour Visconti at the Louvre in Paris. Opened in 2012, the elegant insertion creates a golden cloud within the Second Empire courtyardits undulating glass and metal mesh roof covers two levels of exhibition space below. Currently, his office is working on several projects for the Expo Milano 2015. Bellini took some time to speak with Record about his Salone experience and the exhibition.

Can you explain why the Salone is important not just for product designers, but for architects like yourself?

The Salone del Mobile has made Milan the center of the world when talking about and reflecting on design, architecture, art, and fashion because it is not only where the big fair is exhibiting design products, but where all the city itselfthe streets, shops, restaurants, and museumsbecome part of the interface of communication. Critics, writers, photographers, architects, designers, and entrepreneurs come from all over the world. That is unique, it only happens in Milan once a year.

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Dispatch from Milan: 'Where Architects Live'