Marketing director Audi Italy talks about the elective affinities that unite the Audi brand and the design community

From the creation of Moritz Waldemeyer in via Montenapoleone to the opening of the Torre Velasca illuminated by the great Ingo Maurer, the artistic masterpieces of Yuri Suzuki first and Studio Mad Architects. And again from the installation by architect Hani Rashid 'accompanied' by the performance of the master Ludovico Einaudi at the Arco della Pace, up to Marcel Wanders last year in Via della Spiga. And this year: House of progress, an urban regeneration project, a real gift to the city.

Since 2014 Audi has been at the Milan Design Week to talk to the public about design but why? We have asked Massimo Faraò, Marketing Manager Audi Italy, and retraced with him the confrontation with Milan on the essential evolution of the relationship between citizen, territory and mobility.

Why does Audi want to speak to the public about design?

We have been at FuoriSalone since 2014. It is not a random choice: it is essential for us to speak to the public about design and the design community. We share the same values. It is a search for value affinity that allows us to use a common language. Technology, digitization and design have been guiding Audi's research strategy for some time and are part of the soul of the brand.

The whole evolutionary path of the brand is permeated by these themes: they are therefore the supporting assets of everything we want to tell. The lowest common denominator for this value system is the customer, which we call premium progressive, who is well represented by the design community.

It is a typology that is defined through a personal attitude oriented towards innovation, towards the future, towards progress. It represents what Audi wants to be: sustainability, design intended as aesthetic and functional research, digitization and the ability to build cars strongly characterized by performance.

Why did you choose to intervene in an iconic place with an urban regeneration project?

House of progress is a stage of content and values. Show the public our choices without trivializing them, use a precise code based on a total look that manages to talk about our products, our aesthetics and our commitment to the future. Milan plays a key role, it is the center of technology and innovation, of the search for solutions and values ​​that the design week re-launches year after year.

We ride this type of path and for years we have been identifying professionals who qualify the relationship with the city and with the public at the FuoriSalone.
The theme of House of progress is regeneration. It is not a theoretical principle, on the contrary. In Audi finds concrete reason in three macro summaries. The theme of the planet and sustainability, which leads back to the industrial choices of the product.

The theme of society, which today embraces everything that works on the principles of inclusiveness in global terms and brings content and creativity into our work. Finally, the theme of the individual: our responsibility is to qualify the relationship with the individual to transfer our principles of responsibility. In the certainty that they concern shared objectives, for which everyone must do their part.

What will visitors find at the House of Progress?

For seven years we have been doing the Audi City lab, thought laboratories. This year we have chosen House of progress , a concept that we would like to represent the creativity applied to our corporate. We will bring all of this to life by transferring content related to the idea of ​​regeneration within a project which is itself regenerative. In this space we want to focus attention on the most innovative products.
Never before has the design concept been a driver for Audi.

For us it means redesigning our role from mobility enablers to social change enablers, through the technological application to communication between cars and between cars and infrastructures, to reduce social costs with predictive intelligence. From designing the cars starting from the outside to designing them from the inside out to build them around the needs of man and his well-being.

From islands on four ball wheels that protect, defend, interact. Like the examples of A6 Avant e-tron Concept, grandsphere concept and urbansphere that we will present to the public in an Italian preview.

Poliform è il brand scelto da Audi  per interpretare un interior del futuro. Come è nata l'idea di una partnership fra Audi e Poliform per questo evento?

La partnership nasce dalla frequentazione e dalla prossimità durante le design week. E dall’incontro tra lo stile italiano e la perfezione costruttiva tedesca, che rappresenta un connubio straordinario per valori e vantaggi competitivi assoluti. Abbiamo individuato delle soluzioni che alla qualità della vita a bordo aggiungono contenuti in termini di alta qualità, tecnologia, design, Poliform è il partner ideale.

E per noi non è per  nulla scontato avere un attore come Poliform accanto che ipotizza la qualificazione degli interni in termini di riflessione progettuale. Si tratta di un esercizio virtuoso per ora, un concept che però darà un impulso significativo al nostro mercato. Come italiano ne sono particolarmente fiero.