ARTHUR CASAS at Milan Design Week 2023
INTERTWINED STORIES – ARTHUR CASAS
With ETEL And ARTHUR CASAS. ARCHITECTURE
Published by Rizzoli New York, Text by Livia Debbane
Photography by Fernando Guerra, Filippo Bamberghi,
and Mauro Restiffe
via P. Maroncelli 12, Milan
Brazilian architect Arthur Casas is proud to showcase, on the occasion of the Milan Design Week 2023, a series of new furniture in collaboration with the design brand ETEL and to present to the public the ARTHUR CASAS. Architecture, a comprehensive publication dedicated to 20 of his selected projects and published by Rizzoli New York.
Casas returns to Milan with a special project years after the great success of the Brazilian Pavilion he designed for Expo 2015, for which he was awarded the World Architecture Festival Award that year.
The exhibition “Intertwined Stories – Arthur Casas” is a precious insight into Casas’ philosophy: the gallery in via Maroncelli 12 will display a series of new pieces, as well as some of its most iconic creations, which embody the meticulous way in which the architect designs small scale pieces just like he conceives the bigger architectures. From tableware to furniture, from public to private architectural spaces and even urban revitalization projects, Arthur Casas Studio is able to create whole environments: “To design a building or a chair is the same thing, I face the same difficulties and I apply the same principle that simply results in expressing the same aesthetic language”, Arthur Casas states.
Among the new projects showing in Milan the coffee and side tables from the Bala Soft line and three new lamps – Fred, Ginger and Gene. In addition, some of the most well-known pieces by Casas: the Wyllis Bar, the Onda trimmer, the Arquipélago coffee and side tables, the Rino table and the Ela sofa. All of these project represent the specific way in which the architect and his studio work, with reference to the classical architecture and the addition of a contemporary sensitivity which is reflected both in his work as a designer and in his work as architect.
Milan Design Week 2023 is also the chance to present the volume Arthur Casas. Architecture, published by Rizzoli New York and released in March 2023. The book, a celebration of the mature works by studio showing its versatility, features twenty of the most recent projects in Casas’ practice, and the ones that he finds more emblematic of the way he thinks about architecture and design. “These are works that have my DNA in them”, Casas explains. “They say a lot about how I believe architecture and design should be, and what impact they may have on people’s lives”.
The photos of the book have been taken by renowned photographers like Fernando Guerra and Filippo Bamberghi, as well as Mauro Restiffe, one of the most celebrated contemporary Brazilian photographers. The partnership with Restiffe is unique, as he has been asked to put into practice his know-how as an “instant photographer” on architecture, giving life to images with a freer composition where the angle or the framing results are surprising. “Mauro Restiffe has great affinity with architecture, especially modern architecture, with the relationship between spaces and light”, Casas explains. “For the book he expressly asked not to visit the houses beforehand; this helped him to take pictures while he was discovering the architecture, hence the images are unexpected and fresh”.
“This book is the summary of our most representative and newest works”, Arthur Casas adds. “Publishing with Rizzoli gives me the opportunity to communicate to people in Brazil and abroad my studio’s philosophy and approach which has been the driving force of my whole career so far, and which will inspire me in my future projects”
Press department America
Flora Monteiro
e. press@arthurcasas.com
t. +55 11 98906-8961
Press department Europe
Giovanni Maria Sgrignuoli
e.giovanni@gmspress.com
t. +39 328 9686390
New pieces coffee and side tables from the Bala Soft line, side to side
Respectively: side table Bala Soft; Ginger, Fred and Gene Lamps; coffee table Bala Soft