Light that moves time is the site-specific installation by iGuzzini for Milano Design Week 2024 designed by Alfonso Femia/ AF*Design. The project proposes, through the narrative capacity of light, a journey in which the visitor gets lost among worlds in which past, science fiction, oneiric dimension and pragmatic design hybridize, contaminate and communicate in the overlapping of different temporalities.
An archaic truncated cone shape ‘The Primitive Hut‘ stands inside the courtyard of Piermarini’s early 19th century building, home of the iGuzzini space in Milan. The structure evokes the archetypal geometry of the hut, enhanced by the central opening, the óculo, which collects light and diffuses its effects. Made of wooden slats covered with a woven texture, it simulates an atypical structure, a quotation from Marc-Antoine Laugier, an 18th-century architectural historian and critic. This distinct primitive dimension is combined with a post-modern one through the use of reflective strips.
Alfonso Femia, founder of AF* Design talks about the inspiration behind the project: ‘What remains of a temporary installation? At a distance of time, what does it evoke in our memory? What remains, sometimes, are the people around, the occasions, the smells … the emotions. LIGHT THAT MOVES TIME is a project that contains others, up to and including an infinite number of objects and components. In an arbitrary but plausible juxtaposition to the multiverse, parallel dimensions coexist in the installation LIGHT THAT MOVES TIME. For each object, there is a story worth telling, made up of unfolding paths and unfolding scenarios. The heart of the project is future time, observed from the past: retro-futurism, celebrated in literature and cinematography, here becomes a caressing emotional journey.’
With this installation, iGuzzini demonstrates a corporate vision attentive to evolution as a continuous tension and confrontation between past and present in the construction of the future. “iGuzzini,” says CEO, Cristiano Venturini, “returns with enthusiasm to Milano Design Week to present, through the new collections and an installation itinerary, a journey that retraces the history and evolution of the company, with iGuzzini Echoes, the re-editions of the historical archive, and the collections for all living spaces, which summarise the great innovative and technological development that has made the company a reference point in the world. Through the universal language of design, man and beauty are at the centre of the project“.
Inside the installation, many of the company’s new collections find a harmonious counterpoint to the ancestral world, such as the Filorail track, the thinnest in the world, and the Newfo projector, a formal homage to iGuzzini’s first architectural projector from 1977. The imaginative journey continues inside the showroom: in the ‘In between’ hall, a space for sharing and participation, BeTwo design by Alfonso Femia / AF* Design, Libera design by Artec Studio and again Filorail with Newfo – the new iGuzzini families – are suspended from reflecting discs, a metaphorical reference to the inverse transition between future and past.
With this installation, iGuzzini demonstrates a corporate vision attentive to evolution as a continuous tension and confrontation between past and present in the construction of the future. “iGuzzini,” says CEO, Cristiano Venturini, “returns with enthusiasm to Milano Design Week to present, through the new collections and an installation itinerary, a journey that retraces the history and evolution of the company, with iGuzzini Echoes, the re-editions of the historical archive, and the collections for all living spaces, which summarise the great innovative and technological development that has made the company a reference point in the world. Through the universal language of design, man and beauty are at the centre of the project.’
Inside the installation, many of the company’s new collections find a harmonious counterpoint to the ancestral world, such as the Filorail track, the thinnest in the world, and the Newfo projector, a formal homage to iGuzzini’s first architectural projector from 1977. The imaginative journey continues inside the showroom: in the ‘In between’ hall, a space for sharing and participation, BeTwo design by Alfonso Femia / AF* Design, Libera design by Artec Studio and again Filorail with Newfo – the new iGuzzini families – are suspended from reflecting discs, a metaphorical reference to the inverse transition between future and past.
The installation LIGHT THAT MOVES TIME will be open from 15 to 21 April
iGuzzini space Milan
Via Brera, 5 Milan
Monday 15th: from 2pm to 8pm
Tuesday 16th: 10am to 8pm
Wednesday 17th: 10am to 6pm
Thursday 18, Friday 19 and Saturday 20: 10am to 8pm
Sunday 21: 10am to 6pm
