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).

And with Turin there are five. Five LAGO hot spots in five cornerstone cities and all open beginning with the first in April 2010: Milan-Brera, Venice, Bologna, Riccione and…now Turin! The opening of the fifth LAGO Appartamento – on via Massena 25 in Turin – was a huge success and the event was followed closely by the press even before Saturday, 15 January, the day of the opening. Just think that, yesterday (and so the morning after the opening), the tenant, Marco, was already invited to give a talk about the project and his experience as a tenant.

But how did the evening go? Let’s say it was characterized by lots of cheer, serious and not-so-serious talk and the fusion cooking of Nori Muramatsu (a Japanese chef from Piedmont), in collaboration with Nao, the tenant’s girlfriend…here they are at work, preparing sushi and tea for the guests.

Excellent sushi, I must say. And it was devoured without restraint by the guests who came and went and exited and entered the Appartamento throughout the whole evening. I tasted only two pieces of maki (sob, sob), but they were truly exquisite! Just to give you an idea of the attack on the sushi…

The Appartamento stayed open until 10pm. The last guests made their exit around 1am! A busy evening, but very fun…you can take a look at what happened in the slide show below…

There was even a conjurer, Gian Vito Svito, who left everyone amazed! I admit I tried to cheat, to trip him up, but I did not succeed! He always guessed the card I had fished out without seeing it…

In sum, a grand evening! Marco has already put the photos online, those of the professional photographer naturally…Take a look!

Until next time.

It’s time for the London Design Festival, nine joyous days dedicated to design that will animate the streets of London from September 18th through the 26th. More than two hundred events will be hosted in just as many hot spots throughout the city. Take a look at the guide to decide what you would like to see. The program can be completely personalized online with My Festival, which lets you tag the events that interest you the most.

I suggest that you start out at the hub, which is to say, the Victoria and Albert Museum, where a packed schedule of shows and breakfasts will give you the opportunity to meet the designers. On one of the museum’s staircases you will find a very cool installation by the artist Stuart Haygarth. It’s called Framed. In effect, Haygarth has covered the stairs with colorful wooden frames.

In Trafalgar Square, until September 24 only (so make a note of it), you can admire the robots of Clemens Weisshaar and Reed Kram.

Don’t miss Tent London (September 23-26) and Brompton Design District, two sections dedicated to young talent. At Tent London the creators of Florence Design Week, the Florentine expo-show dedicated to design, will present the project I-DES – CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN DESIGN SHOWCASE, an initiative dedicated to Design Made in Italy. Designers coming from regions all over Italy will have the opportunity to display their work and gain exposure on the European level. The partnership Florence-London will be reinforced by the presence of international designers at next year’s Florence Design Week, which will take place between May 24th and 29th, 2011.

The festival will end with the fair, 100% Design (Earls Court, September 23-26), a state of the art production.

For those of you who will be in London for the event, don’t forget to pay a visit to our LagoStore on Baker Street. Spencer and his team will be ready to tell you everything, but really everything, about LAGO!

For those who instead must remain at work, do follow the event on Twitter: #ldf10

On July 23, Lago hosted the first meeting of a cross-fertilization workgroup centered on Lean Office: and yeah, at Lago we are taking it seriously !

In our showroom, we gathered together a group of Venetian companies that use Lean methodology as one of their key tools for the improvement of company procedure. Our very special guest was Fondazione CUOA, represented by Franco Picone and Melania Frattini.

Cross-fertilization workgroup … a clearly complex concept – and difficult to focus on during a scorching July afternoon! – that nevertheless revealed itself to be of great interest to all of the participants.

After a brief introduction to the basic concept of Lean Office, and a description of the workgroups already underway at Lago by Nicola Aggujaro – our very own “Lago Lean Man” – we turned our attention to something we are all quite keen on: sharing stories to learn about the diverse realities present in participating companies.

It is always intriguing to hear about the strengths of other companies, and about how the ingenious solutions developed at one business can be successfully applied at a completely different kind of organization when both implement strategies developed using a methodology like Lean.

Revved-up, enthusiastic, and full of new and stimulating ideas, at the end of the day the obligatory question was: and now what do we do?

The workgroup can take many different paths. The choices range from simple meetings focused on training to the literal exchange of human resources for brief periods of time. Between these two poles are myriad possibilities, from in-depth discussions about the workgroups underway at the participating companies to making the most of team members by using them as consultants in the initiation of new workgroups …

Now it’s time to take off for the summer break, and starting in September we will all be ready for new, fantastic adventures under the auspices of Lean Office!