Guido Falleschini talks about the past, present and future of design.

Passing the gallery

Interview prepared: Oksana Kashenko

Magazine: N10 (88) 2004

They look at him like ichthyosaurus. He is not just a man of the past century. He is one of the few revolutionaries in the furniture industry. Experience and age Guido Falesquini allow him to look at design issues as if he sees his past, present and future from a bird's eye viewSALON: Legends about you. They say, Faleschini knows everything about design ... - Today, design has become part of a common perception, common understanding. Became popular, widely available. In the days of my youth it was a little different. I am from a generation of older people who started in the 60s. Then we perceived the very concept of design through the prism of industrial furniture production. Of course, I was lucky: I started my activity literally with a pencil in my hands. I was also lucky that I was born, studied and worked in Italy. And this is not just patriotism. Although the basic concept of modern design was developed by great non-Italians (Corbusier, Eames, Rey) in the twenties and thirties, I believe that design in the full sense of the word, if taken on a global scale, was established in Italy e. And I just got lucky. The 70s were a transitional period. Even more abundantly enough ideas of the 60s, the designers were engaged in their implementation and brought to mind all the innovative products created a dozen years earlier. And then the black band began. We can say that in the 80s and in the early 90s there was no design. It was a moment of stagnation and even a rollback. Due to the lack of new ideas, designers turned to styles from previous periods. The phenomenon was observed not only in the interior, but also in architecture, in which classical, even baroque motifs appeared, often used only as external decor, placed in a modern context, which caused terrible confusion in architectural circles. In this regard, today, including in the interiors, the rollback has been overcome, and we returned to the design concepts with new, fresh ideas. This year, it seems to me, a significant step has been made. This is, above all, the use of new materials that already carry new ideas. These are plastics, polyurethane foams, transparent and other materials. Approximately the same thing happened in the 60s, when new materials appeared on the market gave rise to new ideas. It is necessary to ascertain that the end of traditional furniture comes. Not only in terms of appearance. The sofa is no longer just a place to sit. He is now sitting, lying, reclining, reading, storing various things, and drinking coffee at a table hidden in the armrest. That is, the furniture becomes multifunctional. And already this complicated essence of it begins to dictate completely different forms. Look, most of the furniture now has the shape of a cube or parallelepiped. This form is very verified, but at the same time devoid of personal beginning. The cube is undoubtedly an extremely rational geometric form. Any form must justify by the existence of the function that it performs, and vice versa. For example, a chair is the most difficult object to design. The chair must fit the shape of the human body. And if it is deprived of this function, then it is impossible to call it design. At least, if we are talking about industrial design. That is, besides beauty, the form should have some rationally thoughtful content.S: In the 60s, a breakthrough in design was associated primarily with the advent of plastic. In this case, as far as I know, you made your name at work with the skin, not with plastic. Now, you say, everyone makes cubic sofas. And for i4MARIANI you design sofas of unusual pyramidal shapes with rounded corners. Going against the current - is this the secret of success? Why are you doing this? - I see the situation a little differently. Look at the same Theorema model, which was originally created in 1969. At the end of the 60s - the beginning of the 70s, foamed polyurethanes appeared, which previously did not exist in principle. This gave us the opportunity to make very simple forms and to invent modular systems. Then the Theorema sofa consisted of only two elements attached to each other: the seat and the back, reaching the ground. Today we are back to this concept. Just a little easier design and put it on the base with legs. In the new catalog i4MARIANI we see clear straight line shapes. But there are no especially new materials here, we take advantage of what was once created, and this is also a concept. Traditional materials such as fabric, leather or wood are becoming more and more rare. Moreover, such materials are historically very close to a person; they have always been present in his house. But note, new materials, the same plastics, etc., can easily coexist with eternal materials: leather, wood. It all depends on what we want to do with them.S: Now such a huge selection of furniture. It is difficult to even list all the styles in which it is produced. How can an outsider in all this navigate? - First, of course, as in all spheres of human activity, some basic cultural training is desirable. In order for a person to consciously choose one or the other. At a minimum, you need to look through magazines. And do not be fooled by the image side, the form beyond which there is nothing. But for this you need to consciously approach the issue.