Category: Maria Celeste Wu

What I learned from this trip was way more than I expected before coming to this program. All the experiences started from the moment when I got off the plane and touch the ground of Italy. Hearing people around me speaking a language that I didn’t recognize at all was both exciting and frightening for me. I feel I not only learned a big deal about Italian architecture and design but also about how different cities in Europe manages their city planning along with their long history and peculiar culture. Considering my East-Asian background, I felt I was more interested in Asain culture and design but not that in the European design. However, after this time in Milan, now I experienced the delicateness of Italian design. We’ve seen how Italians incorporate design deep fully to their daily life from as small as a teaspoon to as big as buildings.

It was nice that we could have the opportunity to visit other cities of Italy like Como, Omegna (Alessi Museum), Treviso and Venice. Smaller cities/towns have a totally different atmosphere than bigger cities like Milan or Venice which was nice and relaxing to encounter this difference after staying in Milan for a while. The visit to Alessi Museum and Artemide was one of the highlights for my trip. I loved how Alessi explained to us their main approaches when they choose their final products to produce: function, sensoriality memory imaginary, communication language, and price. This criteria formula gave me a basic idea about product design process which I’ll probably use it for my future design process. Our visit to both Alessi and Artemide also showed us the production process of their products, especially at Artemide. Their packaging and storage system helped me to think more about the use of space for storage and the security of products during the shipping process.

Being at Milan most of the time made me have even homesick when I was traveling around during the weekends. But weekends were one of the best opportunity to travel and explore other places. I loved the fact that I could visit several places with different architectural buildings such as Milan, Florence, Paris, Venice, etc. I feel Paris was the most impressive city that I’ve visited during the weekends, even we only stayed there for a day and a half. It was the most exhausting trip that I’ve ever taken in my life. We visit the Louvre, the Museum of Decorative Arts, the Center of Pompidou, the Foundation Louis Vuitton, the Arc de Triomphe de l’Etoile and we ended up the day with the visit to the Eiffel Tower. We went from the most iconic monument of Paris, the Arc de Triomphe, to one of the most modern buildings designed by Frank Gehry, the Foundation Louis Vuitton. The whole architectural experience across the city was amazing to observe in person.

My overall experience in Milan was amazing. I love the fact that many objects that we saw in exhibitions or studio spaces are broadly used by the public. That means people love them either for their function or for the meaning behind it. Even I’ve already stayed in Milan for a month, I feel I should live here for an entire year to experience and explore every corner of this city. Wish I could come back in the future! Ciao, Milano.

Time went so fast and unfortunately, the final week in Milan came. Since we are all departing on Thursday, and the Wednesday is dedicated for our apartments’ cleaning; the program officially ends the Tuesday. I have to say that the visit to the FM Studio was the highlight of the week.

Even I was exhausted because I haven’t eaten much on that day and we did a walking tour around San Babila area during the whole evening; Cristiano Bottino’s lecture at the FM Studio was amazing which was totally worth it to visit. Among the projects that Cristiano Bottino explained to us, I like their work on finding a new visual identity for the New Doha International Airport the most. I love the fact that the overall design is based on the shape of the airport from the top view and creating a brand new pattern which is repeatedly used during the whole design process: icons, patterns, etc. Which means everything that they designed have a specific reason behind it. Also the flexibility of their design depending on the demands and all the researches and effort they made to make this work as well as possible really impressed me. The relationship between each member of the studio is the part that I most admire for. Instead of simple coworkers relationship, their relationship is more like a big family.

On Thursday, June 19th, we departed from Milan to Venice. On our way to the hotel at Treviso, we stopped by several interesting places which were the biggest highlights for me in the week 4. But I liked the visit to Fabrica the most.

We went to Fabrica in the morning. It is considered as a communication research center for aspired young designers. It is located in Treviso, Italy and it was founded in 1994 by Luciano Benetton and Oliviero Toscani. The building itself was designed by Tadao Ando, a Japanese architect. Japanese design usually tends to bring more interaction between human and nature. Therefore, it was amazing to see the use of the natural light source in the building, especially in the library: a big circular hole is open on the center of the ceiling and another smaller rounded circle light source is located on the center of the floor. This use of the natural light creates a peculiar study environment for its users. The use of natural materials like stone and wood is also appreciated by Tadao Ando. I would like to see more of the building like working area, meeting rooms, etc. to observe more of Ando’s approach when designing this building for young designers.

After an intense week, Kalissa, Neesha, Moira, Courtney and I decided to spend a more exhausting weekend in Paris. Even there were a lot of things that we couldn’t have done due to the short time of our stay, the trip was definitely worth it.
The highlight of the trip for me was the visit to the Foundation Louis Vuitton, designed by Frank Gehry. The most famous work from him has to be the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. The opening of this Museum had brought a huge economic and cultural revitalization to the city Bilbao, and this phenomenon is known as the Bilbao effect. Gehry’s success in his works made me want to see the Foundation Louis Vuitton in person so bad when I was in Paris. And we finally made it.

The Foundation Loius Vuitton was opened in the year 2014 and located next to the Jardin d’Acclimatation in Paris. The placement of the building was in the middle of one of the biggest natural attraction of the city. The luxurious look of the Foundation gives an interesting industrialized touch to the Bois de Boulogne Park. But the reflection of the natural landscape from the building also works well in neutralized this industrial interaction with nature.

The exhibition of the Foundation Louis Vitton consists of two parts: half of the permanent exhibition about the architecture of the Foundation itself and the other half was some temporary exhibitions with some museum collections of modern art exhibitions.

The combination of the building and art collections is also a highlight for the Foundation. For example, Olafur Eliasson’s work Inside the Horizon created a particular interactive space with illuminated yellow columns for the public in a walkway.

Picture of the week

Week 2 passed by so fast. By the end of the week, we went to the Alessi Museum. We had to wake up early and take a bus ride from the Cadorna station to there. The weather was cool and refreshing that very woke me up when we arrived the Alessi Museum.

These sculpture and building really caught my attention when we first got there. I didn’t know that it was a real project until later. But later, we were welcomed by Alessi’s stuff with a free hot drink which was a totally a plus to my personal experience at the museum. After the small break with my Italian cappuccino, the staff gave us a long but impressive lecture about the history and goals of Alessi as a company:

“A true work of design must move people, convey feelings, bring back memories, surprise, transgress… It must make us feel intensely that we are living our one single life.” —— Alberto Alessi

The criteria formula that they mentioned was interesting for me too:

SMI (Sensoriality Memory Imaginary) + CL (Communication Language) + F (Function) + P (Price) = SSS

For Alessi, it is almost impossible to make something that can be perfectly scored using this criteria test.  Therefore, Alessi would prefer to sacrifice the price and the function of the object to have a more personal and communicational product: “For Alessi, Design is not a simple formal project for an object but it is a sort of “overall philosophy”. ”

After the visit to the Museum and the lunchtime, I took a small walk with Moira in the city Omegna which was a really nice ending to my second week in Italy.

Picture of the week