At Cersaie 2022, Interni made its contribution, as part of the Café della Stampa, with a talk on the design work of Paola Navone's Studio OTTO: a reflection on the meaning and uses of ceramic material between design and craftsmanship. Cristina Pettenuzzo, designer, art director and partner of the studio discussed it with Patrizia Catalano, journalist of Interni

Versatility, resistance and durability, guaranteed cleanliness and hygiene, availability of maxi and hyper-maxi formats in minimal thicknesses, sustainability in both the production process and design approach, have made and continue to make ceramics one of the materials most appreciated by planners and designers. Even in the ceramics sector, the use of secondary raw materials from waste and scrap and eco-sustainable adaptation processes in internal production phases are becoming increasingly common. Ductile and timeless, this material fits into the virtuous circle of the circular economy by furnishing, sanitising, reproducing other materials (wood, marble, stone, etc.) while maintaining its aesthetic and structural qualities intact.

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Gilda Bojardi, editor of Interni, introduces the talk. On the left, Cristina Pettenuzzo from the OTTO studio and, on the right, Interni journalist Patrizia Catalano who moderated.

Ambassador of Italian creativity

Paola Navone has always loved it, using it in her projects in Italy and abroad. Passionate about local cultures, she has translated the languages of tradition into collections and pieces that have made design history. Multifaceted and a citizen of the world, her architectural and interior projects are, at an international level, ambassadors of Italian creativity: from the new 25hours Hotel San Paolino in Florence to COMO Dempsey Hill in Singapore just to mention the most recent ones. Detained in Singapore by work commitments, Cristina Pettenuzzo, a long-standing collaborator of Studio OTTO, narrated and translated Navone's vision for the audience of Cersaie's Café della Stampa, who sent her greetings through a nice video clip.

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Paola Navone, reporting from Singapore, greeted the audience in the hall.

Project culture and design rigour

Ceramic surfaces are becoming more and more technologically advanced in terms of performance: new processes allow new, unusual, special processes that the studio has always tackled with an approach that blends the highest culture of international trendy design and the rigorous expression of design. With ironic, playful approaches often close to the textile and fashion sector.

Imperfection and colour

Underlying each project is the studio's mood, which seeks an imperfection mixed with optical effects, enlivened by decorations expressed through a scenic use of material, with out-of-scale patterns, frescoes that "eat" the walls, almost giving the impression of a restoration in progress. In this sense, the Poetry House collection, born from the collaboration with ABK, is a project that explores materials such as wood and stone, graphic signs inspired by Navone's artistic experience and history; or the Vedononvedo collection for Decoratori Bassanesi: reflections of light in dialogue with the material and optical suggestions, thanks to mirrored, scratched and sandblasted elements. And then there is irony and a use of colour that, even in solid colours, is never taken for granted, a bit like what happens in nature: the Affresco collection for Bisazza is characterised by geometric and floral motifs in bright, grainy and surreal colours.

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View of the Café della Stampa hall.

Nomadic spirit

Indulging this nomadic spirit and following her passion for travelling, Paola Navone's designs mix Western, Mediterranean and Oriental colours and flavours. Colours that expand in a fluid way, tones that blend thanks to the use of handcrafted manual techniques, unexpected and exclusive motifs that are created by integrating traditions and decorations that give new meanings to symbols and graphic signs. Through research born over the years, in the course of travels: long in time, but fast in synthesis when a choice has to be made at the design stage. Able to return a glance: the personal vision filtered by the ability to grasp and enhance what is encountered, intercepted and finally translated into design.

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Cersaie 2022 figures on the rise

The 39th edition of Cersaie lived up to the expectations of the companies that believed in the possibility of investing in the exhibition, to return to meet their customers directly, presenting the latest product innovations in stands of great visual and emotional impact. In the fifteen fully-occupied halls of the Bologna Exhibition Centre - totalling 140,000 square metres of floor space - 624 companies exhibited, of which 354 from the ceramic tile sector, 88 from the bathroom furnishing sector, 183 from the laying, raw materials, new surfaces, and service sectors. An exhibition with a strong international connotation, confirmed by the 237 foreign exhibitors - 38% of the total - and the 26 countries represented. 91,296 attendees, an increase of about 50% compared to the 2021 edition that had marked one of the first returns of a major exhibition in the difficult post-pandemic period. The appointment is for 2023 from 25 to 29 September.

#Design #Crafts #Furniture
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