This past week was a blur.

Each day was something different. A day of plastic furniture. A day of light. A day of type. A day of fine art. A day of architecture. A day of architecture pavilions. A day on an island with no cars. So much happened in such a short time that it’s hard to make sense of it all.

Artemide is one of the most interesting producers we have visited this far. I came to Milan wanting to observe public lighting, but found the street lamps homogenous and rather boring. Artemide was the antithesis of ubiquitous and pedestrian.

While the form of the fixtures, lamps, and lighting solutions are beautiful, I was interested to learn about the processes between design, engineering, and manufacturing that our host explained to us. I consider myself a rather logical person, and the total consideration of technical aspects of lighting combined with the sensibility of architecture gave me a complete appreciation for each designed lighting object.

I was glad to be introduced to the architecture of Carlo Scarpa over this weekend as well. His designs are unexpected, esoteric, and from an ambiguous ancient past or far future. Something about his architecture, and I can’t quite put my finger on it, reminds me of Eero Saarinen’s buildings that I’ve visited. If I had to put it into words, the architecture seems otherworldly and full of secrets that only the architect knows.