Italian Design Innovation On Show

Furniture designs featured at new Toronto downtown exhibition at the Design Exchange

The Italian design industry has been world-renowned for the past 50 years and a new show at Toronto's Design Exchange (DX) gives us some clues to how this Italian expertise is being maintained. iMade - Ways of Producing: Rigour and Invention in the Italian Furniture Industry focuses on developments in Italian design production techniques over the past 10 years.
The strength of Italian design can be attributed to many factors. Foremost is the centuries-old tradition of fine craftsmanship throughout the country's regions. Since the post-war period, Italian design has shone, in part, because of its celebration of the designer. This is evident in iMade, which explores collaborations between manufacturers and star designers such as Antonio Citterio, Philippe Starck and Ross Lovegrove. The industry is always receptive to new talent and the DX exhibit also features a partnership between the Flos lighting company and the younger German designer Konstantin Grcic.
Collaboration on many levels appears to have contributed to Italy's design success. A Toronto furniture designer once marvelled at the good relations between Italian designers and engineers, for example. Indeed, the iMade show presents a picture of a small industry that has succeeded globally through the sharing of expertise.
Italian design innovation is front and centre at the DX exhibit. Major manufacturers are taking advantage of new moulding technologies to create that which was once impossible. Antonio Citterio's Sina chair for B&B Italia achieves a simple result, but the exhibition panels explain a more complex story. As designer Bruno Munari notes in the iMade show catalogue, "Often simple is confused with easy. The job of removing, which is usually what is needed to free things of surplus and excess, leaving only something with meaning and its own elegance, goes almost always unnoticed."
Other iMade highlights include the poetic Millefoglie plywood chair by Biagio Cisotti and Sandra Laube, as well as the funky Soft chaise longue by Zanotta, which features a candy orange coloured polyurethane gel-filled mattress.
iMade - Ways of Producing: Rigour and Invention in the Italian Furniture Industry is making its North American debut at Design Exchange, a not-for-profit which promotes Canadian and international design. Along with DX, show organizers include the Italian Trade Commission, Centro Legno Arredo Cantu, Regione Lombardia, Unione delle Camere di Commercio della Lombardia and the Italian Ministry of Productive Activities.
The Italian furniture exhibition is on show until Friday, November 1. Exhibit hours are Monday to Friday, 10 to 6, and weekends from noon to 5. Design Exchange, 416-216-2160, is located at 234 Bay Street, just south of King.

Publication Date: 2002-09-29
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=1789