Design Conversations

Only one day to go until the Mario Brunello concert. Have you made your reservation? Act soon because seating is limited. All you need to do is register on the website Festival delle Città Impresa and sign up for the event.

If are feeling lost by the wayside, let me explain what I am talking about…

As you know, LAGO has contamination with other realities in its DNA. This times we are contaminating ourselves with music and we are doing it in an unusual way: we are hosting “I thought it was Bach”, a musical event for which Mario Brunello will perform a selection of Bach suites for violoncello in a suggestive and unexpected location: the LagoFabbrica. Which is to say in a business space that is normally dedicated to production and that will become an Auditorium for the evening.

It will be stupendous to see the factory emptied of machinery and filled with musical notes. From the production of products to the production of music, of culture.
Betting on the capacity of a business to produce culture is a choice we made some years ago, moved by the desire to have a positive impact on our territory. And we are reaping the good fruits of this decision.

The event tomorrow evening (starting at 8pm) will start off with the technical manager of Ferrari, Roberto Fedeli, who will demonstrate how a motor attains perfection through a highly refined process that begins from its most “human” characteristic, which is to say the sound it produces.

This will be followed with the performance by Mario Brunello, who will be accompanied by the “metropolitan” video commentary of another great of the world of Italian music, Vinicio Capossela.

But for those who have time, the evening will begin before 8pm. At 6pm we will take a tour led by Anna Scalfi Eghenter, who will show us the project she designed for the industrial zone of Villa del Conte and that she created in our Art Waiting Room, where we are scheduled to arrive at 7pm. Here is the invitation…

A day of intriguing contaminations, not to be missed!

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LagoFabbrica – “LagoFabbrica” derived from a project by Italo Chiucchini, a non-factory that produces insofar as conceived according to the criteria of organic domestic architecture. Here, noble materials not commonly used for industries meet: architectural systems made to the measure of man create harmonious sequences of inclined pitches, wooden beams, bricks and glass, terracotta, steel and aluminum.

Mario Brunello – Born in Castelfranco Veneto (Treviso), studied at the Venice Conservatory with Adriano Vendramelli and Antonio Janigro. In 1986 he won first prize at the International Competition Čajkovskij of Moscow in the category dedicated to the violoncello.

Founder and director of the Italian String Orchestra, he has performed in the most important concert halls worldwide, conducted by the biggest names, including Claudio Abbado, Myung-Whun Chung, Valery Gergiev, Carlo Maria Giulini, Eliahu Inbal, Marek Janowski, Riccardo Muti, Zubin Mehta and Seiji Ozawa.

He plays a Maggini violoncello made in 1600 that belonged to Benedetto Mazzacurati and then later to Franco Rossi, violoncellist of the Quartetto Italiano.

In Castelfranco Veneto, he hometown, he gives concerts, courses and master classes at Capannone Antiruggine, a historical factory where one once worked with iron and has now been transformed into a concert hall.

Our Art Waiting Room is currently in the able hands of Anna Scalfi Eghenter, an artist from Trent who, through her art, seeks to trigger participatory dynamics beyond the strictly artistic sphere and in relation to such themes as the economy, the environment, daily life and living.

Her new project, “Time is the place”, for fondazione march, invites reflection on the critical points of mobility in the industrial zone of Villa del Conte (PD), offering creative strategies to users that can become new habits and that stimulate relations between businesses.

Through research on transportation (train and bus routes and schedules, parking, metropolitan surface projects) and on the ways, habits, schedules and motivations of those who work, live or arrive in Villa del Conte, Anna in generating a series of targeted artistic interventions such as Workstation (the artist’s studio), Time Ticket (a ticket which has a time as its destination, not a place), Usucapio (train station seating dedicated to commuters), Born to Be Stolen (fluorescent bicycles with instructions for how they can be stolen), Fairway (industrial golf course with the course holes located at participating businesses) and Mapcase (bookstore-archive in the shape of a map of Villa del Conte).

The goal is to transform the industrial zone of Villa del Conte into an evolved industrial district – not in the literal meaning of the term that signifies a socio-economic entity constituted by a group of businesses of a productive sector located in a circumscribed area, among which there is collaboration but also competition, but rather in the sense of a place constituted by a group of businesses from diverse productive sectors that share services, visions and points of aggregation.

We are getting the ball rolling on Thursday, 28 April with a tour through the industrial zone that departs at 6pm from the Villa del Conte train station.
The industrial zone will be transformed into an enormous gold course in which the businesses constitute the eleven holes. Cement and soil, a few pieces of turf near the gates. Soft, environmentally-friendly balls. Outside of each business, its respective logo is made into a flag signaling a point to be scored. Derived from Urban Golf, Industrial Golf is a new way of relating to public space in the city.

At 7pm we will shift to the LAGO waiting room for the exhibition opening. Later, at 8pm, we will host a concert by Mario Brunello in the LagoFabbrica, which we will tell you about soon.

For information on rounds of Industrial Golf in the Industrial Zone of Villa del Conte contact fondazione march – info@fondazionemarch.org

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Anna Scalfi Eghenter, born in Trent in 1965, conceives art as a subversive frame that alters the boundaries of action. The entire organizational process of her projects takes an analytic perspective of mechanisms of negotiation between art and civil society. An independent artist, she intervenes with site-specific projects that trigger participatory dynamics that extend beyond the strictly artistic sphere on themes such as the economy, the environment, daily life and living.
She currently works in London where she is advancing her project “From inside (I like the system)”, through a PhD program at the Essex Business School. Her work reflects an interdisciplinary background, having studied at the School of Fine Arts, Brera (Milan), the Academy of Theatrical Arts S. D’Amico (Rome) and in the Sociology department at Trent. The artworks of Scalfi Eghenter have been displayed
at the Pistoletto Foundation in Biella (2010), the Foundation of the Civic Gallery of Trent (2009), the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation in Turin (2008), the MART-Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rovereto (2007), and at  Manifesta7-Parallel Events (2008).

Last Wednesday, heedless of the fiery situation, Francesco and Eleonora hopped a flight to Beirut for the inauguration of the first Lago Store in Lebanon. They returned safe and sound…certainly not aboard the mini-car here below, but on a passenger plane….

A perfect opening, a truly beautiful store. In addition to the friends of the Lago Store Beirut there were many journalists and designers present.

Representatives of the Italian Embassy in Lebanon also showed up for the occasion…

To see the store, page through the photos here below…

For all those who were unable to attend the Lago openings in Luxembourg and La Rochelle, we are here to give you a taste of two very Italian evenings, in two completely different locations.

It was a thoroughly Italian opening, on Thursday, September 16, at the Luxembourg Store, located on the “Rue du Luxembourg”, one of the city’s access roads and carpeted in shops. Eugenio and Silvana, our friends from Idea Legno and Sicilian transplants in Luxembourg for more than 25 years, were reunited, with their guests, around the Lago kitchen, waiting for the delights being preparing by Salvatore, a Sicilian chef.

For lovers of sailing and Atlantic crossings, in the area surrounding the famous port of La Rochelle, one week later, precisely September 23, the inauguration of the La Rochelle Store took place in a historical house in the also historical city center. Octant and Gaelle, showing off a very sweet belly, celebrated Lago furnishings with risotto and prosecco, Italian-style, in a very familiar setting, where it was possible to see a fully-functioning Lago kitchen.

We will be waiting for you at the next opening, this time in Italy!

A few days ago, we gave it a small preview and yesterday we were finally able to see, with our very own eyes, the second incarnation of the Appartamento project. This time the navigator brings us to Bologna on Via Dodici Giugno, Number 5, and more precisely in front of a small, early twentieth-century building. Chatter and constant hustle and bustle carry us straight to the apartment door: as always, it is unnecessary to ring or even ask permission to enter….the door is open.

We are immediately met with the smiling welcome of the man of the house, Alessandro. Following our cordial greetings he returns to entertain the other guests who, being curious, are circulating throughout the Appartamento.
The hub of the house, which is also an office, is a corridor/non-corridor off of which open all of the rooms.

The objects and colors clearly reflect the world of our tenant. The principle colors in fact alternate between blue and red, calling to mind the two companies with which the man of the house collaborates: BMW and Ducati.

On the walls, paintings by Gilberto Olivi give the interior a final artistic touch.
Continuing the “domestic tour,” at a certain point one encounters Alessandro’s mama, co-protagonist of the event and undisputed queen of the kitchen (Lago, obviously).

Signora Anna, armed with a rolling pin and an apron, spent almost the whole evening baking tigelle, using upwards of 10 kilograms of flour (not even she could tell me how many she made!).
Dulcis in fundo, and this is a situation that truly calls for the phrase – do you know what Alessandro’s greatest passion is? Sweets! It goes without saying that he delighted us with a series of cakes that he made himself and in particular a zuppa inglese which provided a beautiful finish to the evening…thank you!

From August 26th to September 19, the road leading from Venice to Verona will be teeming with eco-sustainability. I am talking about Sustainable Design Week, a sustainable design initiative that kicked off in Venice during the preview of the Biennale and arrives in Verona Saturday, September 11th on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the “Abitare il Tempo” exposition.

What is it about? It’s a new way of talking about sustainability. One event divided between two great cities of the Veneto (Venice and Verona) with the aim of reawakening consciousness of eco-sustainability through design, art, music and entertainment.

In Venice, through this weekend, you will find “Newcode Design” in the Architecture Biennale and Pavilion 8 of Abitare il Tempo: a traveling exhibition dedicated to sustainable design and curated by Elogico in collaboration with the Associazione Fuoriscala.

The second part of the Festival, “Onirica 2010” will open in Verona next Saturday.
From September 11th through the 19th in the Palazzo della Gran Guardia you will be able to visit exhibitions of designers and artists who have advanced the cause of eco-sustainability and participated in debates, workshops and laboratories on the life cycle of products and environmental impact, in order to better understand how to not overburden the ecosystem.

LAGO will also take part in the events with Ricciolo, an eco-sustainable roll-up stool.

But this time the package won’t be put together for you in advance! To show you that it really doesn’t take much to be eco, we are having you put together Ricciolo yourselves! The instructions are very simple: take the cardboard, roll it, stick on the label and try out the seat. Perhaps it won’t be excessively comfortable, but it’s without a doubt environmentally friendly!

Speaking of which, since you’re already here, calculate your impact on the environment! You might discover that you are much less ecological than you thought…