The owner of the company MINOTTI, Alberto Minotti, tells in an interview with the magazine SALON-interior on the eve of the Milan exhibition of kitchens about creative plans

Passing the gallery

A photo: Oksana Kashenko, Кирилл Овчинников

Interview prepared: Oksana Kashenko

Magazine: N5 (83) 2004

On the eve of the Milan exhibition of kitchens, we asked the owner of the company MINOTTI, Alberto Minotti, about creative plans. Not for nothing. At the beginning of the year, the interior world was shocked by a sensation: the following model for MINOTTI will be created by Claudio Silvestrin, master of architecture Alberto Minotti is incredibly charismatic. He puts his whole soul into every word and gesture and looks like a child when he tries to explain to adults those simple things that the obstinate brain of adults cannot realize. His love for minimalism is genuine. And in this, they and Claudio Silvestrin stand absolutely each other.SALON: The company has been around for a long time, since 1949. How did MINOTTI get into the top five of the best kitchen manufacturers that Claudio Silvestrin is ready to design? - Thank you ... 1999 and 2000 were two years in which the factory earned a lot. But while the factory was earning, I realized that I had to change something, had to change the system, had to look ahead. I felt inside my heart that the design loves, I thought I had it, but I didn’t know for sure. It was hidden inside. The case brought me to Claudio Silvestrin. He revealed light to me. S: The kitchen, which, after Abitare il Tempo, in the fall of 2001, went around all the magazines and shook the entire design world - is it the premiere of a new philosophy? - Yes. Claudio Silvestrin taught me what to look and how to look. He taught to hear even silence. Showed what value space and time can have. It inspired me to make an architecture that will live in time. And to make kitchens that will live out of time inside architecture. Kitchen - architecture. I understood the meaning of “taking away” the superfluous, this famous principle of Mies van der Rohe “less means more”. The value and importance of this moment. Clean up is not in the sense of depriving information. But to reflex the process, the very meaning of emptiness. Among the two most beloved modern architects of mine — John Pouson and Claudio Sylvestrin — I chose Claudio for myself. He has not created a single kitchen. But in 2005 we will present it. The first and only, which he has done so far. S: And yet, how was the very first cuisine invented? - This is a step process. It is like a person who grows up. In order to create the base of the body, you need time, food, you need to sleep. Same thing with our brain. Our taste is changing - this is one of the fundamental tenets. Women paint their hair and do the piercing. Things that two years ago and would not have thought to do. Men wear clothes that they would never think to wear a few years ago. We always receive information from outside and are under its influence. And the man is changing. It develops its own taste and hopes that it develops it for the better. That is, the success of an entrepreneur lies precisely in predicting fashion, to arrive ahead of time. This is my strategy, the strategy of MINOTTI kitchens, which overtake time, anticipate taste. When a person looks at my kitchen, what does he feel? The first time they are examined and surprised. They think: "What is it? Is it a kitchen? This is not a kitchen at all." Then they see her again, then again. After six months, they notice: "You know, but I begin to like this kitchen." After some time, the person says: "All the other kitchens seem to me ugly." And this is victory, this is power. This is a simple design, clean, universal. The first secret is that the taste changes. What we didn’t like yesterday, today we like it, and tomorrow we will like it even more. Our eye is not used and afraid of it. But our heart is already ready to accept. That is why I said that the taste is changing. We have to thank the time: it makes it so that the eyes get used to rejoice and say "how beautiful" those things that the heart was ready for a long time. So my kitchen becomes the most beautiful for a person. The following secret is no less important: that which is not cannot become obsolete. My tie will not become obsolete, because it is not. My watches will not expire because they are not. We will bring this into the kitchen and make kitchens that will not become obsolete. Look, there is a base, but it is not visible. In the Maya model, even the thickness of the tabletop is not visible, because we hide it with the door. That is, we were able to "remove" (as part of. - Approx. Ed.), Even the countertop. We hid the hood and oven, hid the base, removed the handle. This is a big win. How can an old pen become one? How can the exhaust hood, which is not, outdated? How can an oven that does not exist become obsolete? Ovens are updated every 2 years, i.e. so that they do not look old, they need to be periodically changed. If a person bought an oven in 2004, then in 2007 it will become obsolete. And I say: "Hide it! If you hide it, it does not exist, and if it does not, it will not become old."S: And the materials? - There are two possibilities: either use materials created by God, or use materials created by man. The first will never become obsolete. Water, metal, fire, trees, stone, rock, created by God. But a person can use things created by himself. For example, products, things, materials that are made in a scientific way from oil are plastic and so on. The material, invented in 2004, in 2010 will be very old. The computer of the 2004 model is very good, but in 2010 no one will buy it, because computers are getting smaller every year, faster and faster. The idea is that scientific progress goes forward, runs. And rightly so, it should be. But I do the kitchen. And I would like my kitchens to live for 30 years, 300 years, 3,000 years, in terms of design, quality. I believe that in 30 years the kitchen should be more beautiful, it should be made only from materials given to us by God. Because the materials created by man experience a modification every year. I want to do things that will last much more than thirty years. Therefore, I use a stone that is two million years old. I choose materials that are made by God, because they were already at the time when we were born, when our parents were born ... The only mixer that I selected for my kitchens was created 40 years ago. This is the tap that Arne Jacobsen made. I didn’t put the tap of today, I put the old tap. He is not the most beautiful, but he is the one that gives me the opportunity to say that my kitchen is a kitchen without time. Kitchen is out of fashion.