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Chiaramonte-Marin: the design, a good idea
Harmonies Magazine

Harmonies Magazine

Chiaramonte-Marin: the design, a good idea

by
September 24, 2020
chiaramonte-marin-terramare-emu-override
Collection of Terramare furniture for Emu

The italian studio Chiaramonte-Marin, formed by Alfredo Chiaramonte, architect, and Marco Marin, industrial designer, builds on their common passion for design, in order to reach diverse artistic horizons. The two designers thus collaborate with the giants of the European manufacture and participate in the largest exhibitions.

After being submerged in the world of Murano for a while, designers Alfredo Chiaramonte and Marco Marin join their artistic vigor to establish a multidisciplinary workshop. From interiors, graphics, products and lighting designs, the eponymous studio would have no boundaries in the design world. With an almost constant creative process, the creators begin each new adventure by focusing on the material envisaged and the techniques to be implemented. Thus, this experimental aspect makes it possible, each time, to generate new ideas. Their great fascination with glass is explicitly illustrated in their designs. Indeed, the tradition that comes into play during the making of the blown glass, the teamwork and the artistic dimension would be responsible for this affiliation. This allows the production of Knot pendant lights in 2016 with the Czech manufacturer Brokis. Simple, elegant but nevertheless sophisticated, this luminaire draws its inspiration directly from the gondolas of Venice and the ropes that tie the boats together on the quay.

Chiaramonte-Marin designs an assembly between two distinct materials, of different texture and composition, to express a certain rough delicacy. Regarding furniture, and more precisely garden furniture, the Italian duo imagines, for Emu, a steel swing called Cool-là, an unusual piece of furniture defying all categorization. The product represents a kind of nest, a cocoon sheltered from the sun, rotating and producing a pleasant, relaxing and intimate atmosphere outside. At work or during their travels, designers walk around with wide open eyes, always alert, not to miss any detail – no matter how small it is. According to their vision, ideas are drawn from everything around us. In this logic and their inspiration from the natural world, is born Néochic de Vistosi. With an irregular shape, however straddling a triangular and circular appearance to standardize production, this lamp would be an industrial representation of pebbles in their pure state.

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Contemporary concept, sober and elegant lines, colors and muted tones resolutely in tune with the times, noble and quality materials… The multiple creations designed and sculpted by Terry Dwan have everything to seduce us. Take a look at this outstanding talent. An architect and designer at the same time, Terry Dawn has, for a long time, established his notoriety on the international scene, thanks to his remarkable style. Based in Milan, this native American but adopted Italian uses a language of her own. Born in 1957, in Santa Monica, California, United States, she began her career after studying engineering and architecture at Rice University, Houston, in addition to training in Fine Arts at Studio Arts Center International (SACI) in Florence, Italy. The designer, who won the Fulbright Fellowship to study the architecture of cemeteries and war monuments in Italy, graduated from Yale University in Architecture in 1984. After an experience alongside Antonio Citterio, with whom she collaborated from 1985 to 1996 and founded the Citterio/Dwan office, working on several projects and residential complexes, fairs and exhibitions, notably in Switzerland, Japan, Germany and Italy, she opened her own design agency in 1992 and got involved in great designs, whether in architecture or decoration. A book entitled Antonio Citterio & Terry Dwan: Ten years of Architecture and Design, signed by Pippo Ciorra, was published on the occasion of the exhibition that the duo organized in Bordeaux in 1993. At the same time, it multiplies design projects for the biggest publishers and won numerous awards at international competitions. In 1996, she began by developing industrial design plans for firms such as Sawaya and Moroni, Electrolux, San Lorenzo and Driade. An accomplished designer, she juggles with forms, materials and concepts, questions obvious codes, experiments and explores eclectic universes: from the architecture of private residences, public buildings and interior decoration, through the design and the from salon and exhibition design to furniture and porcelain or silver objects, she is interested in everything and comes out with flying colors. Marrying current vision with everyday functionality, some of her works are part of the permanent collection of the Design Museum at the Milan Triennale. Passionate, her career is marked by numerous explorations of the material where wood, her material of choice, occupies a privileged place. She enjoys working with it revealing its multiple aesthetic qualities, through several everyday basics, many models of which have become emblematic, such as Maui, seat in scented cedar wood, edited by Riva 1920, and the Napa armchair, object oscillating between functional piece of furniture and biomorphic sculpture, or even Implement, a desk composed of two juxtaposed and misaligned wooden boards. Her collaboration with Driade is crowned by the timeless Burgos and Bedda sofas. A sought-after speaker around the world, Terry Dwan has taught architecture at SACI, Florence, and co-taught architectural heritage conservation at the University of Milan. Since 2006, she has been Dean of the Council of the School of Architecture at Yale University and a member of the SACI Board of Trustees.
Terry Dwan, multifaceted designer

Moreover, still in the organic universe, Chiaramonte-Marin evokes the branching of trees, with Rametto by Morosini, suspended or wall lamp. Modular and interconnected, magnets allow ceramic elements to cling to each other, resulting in many variations, and therefore product customization. On the seating side, in 2017, a collaboration with Cizeta L’abbate began, resulting in the creation of the Remo family of seating. These multi-use chairs would have many variations and colors: stools, stackable chairs and bar seats. The ingenious design of this work lies in the detail of the structure of the foot, which widens and evolves from an elliptical to flat, thus imitating the aspect of the oars of the boats in the Venetian lagoon. Since 2001, the studio is still in the biggest design exhibitions, such as the furniture fair in Milan and Maison & Objet in Paris. In the graphics field, the firm would be responsible for the identity of a few brands: catalogs, packaging, invitations, logos, etc.

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