‘bishop table’ by barnaba fornasetti
all images courtesy of fornasetti
For milan design week 2011, milanese atelier fornasetti presents ‘armistizio’ (armistice), a collection of office furniture, designed by barnaba fornasetti son of the late piero fornasetti. The series of furniture pieces draw on the renaissance engravings of armour, mêlée weapons and antique illustrations of firearms. Weapons can be inspiration too! The assortment of weapons, full-body armours in their colorful fusion of antique and modern, provide something unexpected. Archival drawings such as the ‘spade e fucili’ and ‘pugnali e pistole’, previously used to embellish a variety of objects, are revisited, updated and applied in a new context- a common theme this year at design shows.
The drawings are applied in a pop-art mode to furniture pieces: a dividing screen, desk, wall organizer, office
and meeting chairs, small bureau, cabinet with drawers, nesting tables, bench with emphasis on acid and digital tones
ranging from yellow to green to pink. They are all hand-printed silver leaf decorations which give contrast to the
black-lacquered surfaces of the pieces which they adorn. Art gives way to form in the masculine square, linear shapes of the collection.
A year ago I was drawn to Cole and Sons’ Fornesetti wallpaper collection- specifically the Boemia pattern.
Seeing these furniture pieces confirmed for my why I love Fornasetti so much- dramatic, intense color juxtaposed against bold scaled historical documents. A perfect blending of today and yesterday for me. I dug out a cache of original engraving I prurchased 5 years ago in France and starting dreaming about how I would use the idea and information as inspiration for my business. Stay tuned- more to come soon on that design front.
