Milan 09: an installation by Italian designer Fabio Novembre, containing a retrospective of his furniture designs plus two new pieces, is on show at the Triennale Design Museum in Milan.

Mosaic-covered sections representing a flower separate each of the projects, which are presented using illustrations, video and text.

The installation is open until Sunday 17 May.

Above and below: Fleur de Novembre table for Kartell.

Photos by Pasquale Formisano. Illustrations by Emiliano Ponzi.

The information below is from Fabio Novembre:

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Triennale Design Museum presents the latest project blooming in Fabio Novembre’s garden: Il Fiore di Novembre. A spectacular installation conceived ad-hoc by Fabio Novembre allows exploring his works according to an unprecedented approach and offers a number of possible interpretations.

Above: Green Line vases for Bitossi Ceramiche.

The installation is structured according to two different stages. Upon entering the main hall, visitors play the role of viewers: a huge flower, composed of several mosaic sections repeated in space, stands before them. The effect is overtly dramatic, characterised by the contrast between the floor, resembling black asphalt, and colour saturation of the flower.

Two rows of seats are located on a small staircase and allow watching all other visitors, moving like players on a stage. By exploring the backstage, through a small corridor, visitors are plunged into the heart of Novembre’s Flower. It is not a mere presentation of Fabio Novembre’s projects: different sections lead visitors directly and comprehensively into his world, creative processes, obsessions, main project references.

Each section presents a design item, surrounded by texts and images illustrating the inception of the item and the ideas from which it has originated. The architect’s creative progress is staged originally starting from the sources of his inspiration and leading to the end product through a number of sensorial stimuli.

Biography

Since 1966, I’ve responded to those who call me Fabio Novembre. Since 1992, I’ve responded to those who also call me “architect”. I cut out spaces in the vacuum by blowing air bubbles, and I make gifts of sharpened pins so as to insure I never put on airs. My lungs are imbued with the scent of places that I’ve breathed, and when I hyperventilate it’s only so I can remain in apnea for awhile. As though I were pollen, I let myself go with the wind, convinced I’m able to seduce everything that surrounds me. I want to breathe till I choke. I want to love till I die.

Il Fiore di Novembre

Gianni Rodari: “Everything can be done starting from a flower”.

A flower is a symbolic abstraction, an ideal beauty which may be expressed through shapes and colours. A flower, the balance between the potential of a seed and the achievement of flower, is the seducing song of love calls, the moment to be seized of aesthetic perfection. Petals, like deep layers leading to precious nectar, are friendly pollen dispensers for well-known reproductive rituals. Novembre’s flower is a rhetorical figure, an ephemeral CAT to transcend the matter. Novembre’s flower is an aesthetic aspiration evoked through a dreaming approach, a space representation aimed at mixing roles: viewers of show, insect or flower?

Fabio Novembre, 2009

Il Fiore di Novembre/Novembre’s Flower
21st April- 17th May 2009
Triennale di Milano

Overall co-ordination: Silvana Annicchiarico
Concept and installation project: Fabio Novembre
Catalogue by Electa

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