Italian architect Paolo Cesaretti, who received the RedDot Award for his stand design for Kaleseramik at the Cersaie Fair answered our questions. We talked to him about both this stand design and 21st century’s architecture.
FATMA BATUKAN BELGE
First of all, congratulations your RedDot Award at Cersaie 2019. You have received lots of awards in previous years. Does getting award increase your motivation?
This RedDot Award confirms that when client and designer work together shoulder to shoulder the result is always successful. And of course, we see awards as an appreciation of the quality of our work. They make us confident that we are on the right track and have to push that direction.
When was your relationship start with Turkey? Is this relationship related with Kale Group and Turkish Ceramic? How well do you know Turkey?
Istanbul was the starting point, even before meeting Kale. This extraordinary city made of many different cultures and many different ages. You can stand on the Bosphorus shores and feel the past and the future flowing together. I cannot say to know Turkey well, but Istanbul remains a real attractor and a strong inspiration.
Kale is a global Turkish company which is one of the most important manufacturers in the world. Which feature do you give more attention to Kale while designing?
My aim is to show through design the quality and uniqueness of an international group at the forefront of the market. I see in Kale a strong sense of heritage and also a true cosmopolitan attitude. A great energy coming from the past and directed to the future. Everytime I design for them I have this feeling in mind. And I look for the right formal expression to communicate it.
Could you tell us about your cooperation with Kale? Do you have any other future project?
It's a longstanding collaboration started in 2014. For Kale Group we designed many temporary architectures - fairstands, installations – all over the world. At present we don't have any project together, but I guess our knowledge of Kale brand and our expertise in branding in the tile manufacturing market – interior design, product design, art direction for catalogues and adv, interactive installations – could lead to further collaborations in the future.
What are the advantages of working with a company like Kale which give great imporatance to both architecture and design?
We had the opportunity to experiment many variable solutions in terms of design and communication. This is a great opportunity for a designer to improve its abilites and expertise in a specific and ever changing industry such as the tile manufacturing one.
Paolo Cesaretti
Paolo Cesaretti is a design consultant and creative director exploring the concept of designed space as device for delivering information and experience. His practice works across the fields of architecture, design and identity with a strong concern on innovation and research. The international portfolio of clients spreads from manufacture and trade to mass retailing, digital media, finance and communication. He is visiting lecturer at IED Firenze, SPD Scuola Politecnica di Design Milano, Domus Academy, Politecnico di Milano, IULM Milano, RWU Rhode Island, TU Tehran University. The practice has been taking part in several exhibitions – 13th Biennale d’Architettura in Venice and XXIV Compasso d’Oro in Milan among the latest – and been included in four editions of ADI Design Index – the best of Italian design yearbook.
Photo : Lorenzo Pennati
Let's come through the Cersaie 2019 stand design where you received the RedDot award; can you explain the concept of “BespokeRomance” that you use to define this design?
Nowadays, the general strategy of markets - all of them - is to embrace the taylor-made philosophy. Each customer is unique and brands are fighting hard to offer to their customers unique services, experiences, products. In my opinion this firstly means to take care more of the humanside in the relationship between brand and customer, thus creating a longstanding “romance”. Of course it’s an interpretation hiding a subtle irony that didn’t escape to the keen eye of RedDot Award judges.
But “BespokeRomance” also summarizes the concept we developed for Kale. Its inspiration came from the bespoke furniture collection finished with Kalesinterflex presented for the first time at Cersaie. It was a great novelty, showing how this material too often chosen in the building industry just for its extraordinary technical qualities instead can be used creatively in interiors. And underlining such an innovative taylor-made service provided by Kale toits clients.
One of the most important design factor that left on Kale's Cersaie 2019 stand was technology. It is predicted that the field of culture and art for technology can be a great opportunity in the coming years.
How can architecture be affected by advanced technology and digital technology?
Well, let’s think about BIM that is really changing the decision a land logistic process of construction, or computer generated parametric modelling that are influencing the way in wich an architect thinks and designs. Without forgetting there volution that IOT domotic systems are bringing in the interiors. While visiting the last edition of ISH in Frankfurt a colleague told me, laughing: “I don’t need a toilet that suggests me what I will do during the weekend. We are losing our control on this thing”. It was just a joke but it hides a truth: hi-tec should not be a gadget or worse a tyrrany, rather it must be a way to improve people’s life.
Designing a building, a fairbooth or shop is different kind of view. Is your architectural approach different from each other or fed from the same elements? Indeed, this raises one more question: How would you match the demands and corporate identities of brands with your architectural approach?
Any scale delivers its own problems and requires its own solutions with the same degree of complexity. But a life as designer makes you collects or many experiences and builds in you a sensibility for what should be done and what not. Let’scall it expertise, and you can apply it with the same degree of success to very different projects. As you mentioned in your question, it’s always a matter of creating an identity or – if you prefer - a consistent system of formal elements identifying an object, a space, a brand.
Do you think the success of Italy, which plays a leading role in design world, is depend on the cultural infrastructure?
It’s a blend of many factors. The long standing tradition of manufacturing expertise related to specific areas of our country, the ability to find creative solutions in any situation, a vast cultural heritage, and a land that connects central Europe with Mediterrean Sea. It’s a multifaceted unique formula.
As a final question, do you think is there a category called 21 st century architecture?
Architecture has became mainly a formal matter because of computer generated images and Instagram culture. In this sense I see a revolution going on, where the term Architecture – with all the cultural and ethical implications implicit in designing the space - is losing its meaning on behalf of glossy images. Further, in smart megalopolis, the model of singular fancy-shaped big scale multifuncional buildings placed on wide infrastructural nets and surrounded by a repetitive urban context has already taking over and will be more and more the prevailing one.
