On the occasion of Design Week 2024, Palazzo Giureconsulti in Milan opens its doors to Dutch design and hosts the eighth edition of Masterly – The Dutch
On the occasion of Design Week 2024, Palazzo Giureconsulti, a few steps from Milan Cathedral, will host the eighth edition of Masterly – The Dutch. The great event dedicated to Dutch design features Dutch designers, artists, artisans and companies selected by Nicole Uniquole, curator and founder of the initiative.
This year’s edition will see 85 participants, each with a different way of representing today’s design. The program will be packed with exhibitions and installations aimed at illustrating the diverse and dynamic nature of Dutch design delighting art and design enthusiasts through cutting-edge furniture and digital installations.
The 2024 edition is also supported by the Embassy and Consulate of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Italy, which once again demonstrate their commitment to promoting Dutch creativity beyond national borders.
Palazzo Giureconsulti hosts the initiative
In the curator’s intentions, Palazzo Giureconsulti is not a mere container of the exhibition, but an integral part of the visiting experience. In fact, the installations merge with its halls and are inspired by them. Masterly’s coordinated image (including catalog, signage, hostesses’ uniforms), conceived by the Dutch studio Opera Design together with the curator, is also inspired by the stylistic features of the palace and contributes to a pleasant visitor experience, also communicating that sense of care and attention to the audience that has always characterized the event.
Masterly-The Dutch 2024. The good of tradition, the beauty of the future
Masterly-The Dutch is a project in constant evolution towards the future.
This year, the participants’ works convey a sense of a real and profound change that can wait no longer: the projects translate words sometimes used instrumentally in communication, such as innovation, green, sustainability, reuse, into concrete and real projects. And, if we think that design represents the avant-garde, we are pervaded by a sense of confidence and hope for the future by looking at the projects on display from which two narrative strands emerge: tradition and innovation, sometimes distant and sometimes intertwined.
3D Printing and Artificial Intelligence
Change in the design world comes in many forms: the use of 3D molding machines, the application of AI to project development, the research and application of new materials.
For example, Aectual, in collaboration with Phillips MyCreation, will present an entirely 3D printed installation that includes a bar, pavilion, and lighting design.
While Rollo Studio, among the independent designers participating in the exhibition, produces its sculptural lamps using the 3D printing technique. Among the many projects developed with the help of Artificial Intelligence, Every Human Algorithmic Perfumery will welcome visitors to the entrance hall, offering them the opportunity to have a personalized perfume. In fact, thanks to the data that people enter into the system, Artificial Intelligence is able to create custom olfactory formulas.
The role of environmentally sustainable materials in the design of the future
The issue of materials is doubtlessly among the most investigated sensitive topics at Masterly – The Dutch. In this regard, different scenarios open up: there are those who use materials resulting from sustainable production processes, those who use materials obtained from the waste of other productions, and those who focus on reuse.
Lucas Zito’s light sculptures, for example, are made from recycled PET; the lamps in the Layers collection, presented by Philips MyCreation, are created through the molding of a bio-based material. While Primo Arets’ chairs are made from scrap wood.
Under the Icons Re/Outfitted project, The Visionary Lab unites two iconic brands such as Vitra and Levi’s© by re-dressing and reinterpreting some of the Swiss brand’s historic seats with pre-loved denim.
MYCOTEX, on the other hand, is a bio-material, similar to leather, created in the laboratory from compost mushrooms, which, thanks to Neffa’s 3D printing machines, are transformed into objects of various types and uses.
ROOTS exhibition by Simone van Es
Masterly-The Dutch will host ROOTS by Simone van Es, an exhibition highlighting the commitment of artists and designers to pressing environmental issues by celebrating the inherent beauty of the earth and the importance of one’s roots (hence the title).
The Dutch design industry has experienced tremendous development in the field of bio-based materials. Horse manure, seaweed, mushrooms, apple peels, coffee grounds, flax, sunflower are just some of the waste materials used to develop circular solutions that are essential for preserving the earth, where by earth is meant the soil, that of the Netherlands in this case, which faces many challenges and difficulties.
With contributions from artists such as Claudy Jongstra and Diana Scherer, ROOTS investigates the origin, core, types of soil, opportunities, threats, animals and crops of the Netherlands. But also the building materials and products that can be harvested, created or reused from the soil.
Tradition and innovation meet
At Masterly there will be numerous examples of designers and brands that combine ancient know-how with new production techniques. The companies Van Besouw and FritsJurgens, for example, interpret the present by researching into new materials and new technologies, while historic Dutch companies such as Royal Delft and Dutch Originals, with Richard Hutten and Maarten Baas, reinterpret tradition through the aesthetic codes of contemporaneity. There are examples of this even among designers: Robert Bronwasser’s and Aleksandra Gaca’s research combines craftsmanship and futuristic technology.
Pure tradition is mainly embodied by companies engaged in the production of wood and upholstered furniture. Brands such as Nilson Beds, Vonn Jansen, Item, and, in textiles, Halle Design and LCD Textiles, draw lifeblood from heritage, understood as a wealth of experience and expertise to draw on, synonymous with product quality and durability.
Special collaborations: Catawiki / Curated by Nicole Uniquole
There are many prestigious and unexpected collaborations at each edition of Masterly. This year, it is the turn of Catawiki, the best-known and most authoritative online auction site for special items, founded in the Netherlands in 2008.
Catawiki’s presentation at Palazzo Giureconsulti brings together a series of creators who have been commissioned by Nicole Uniquole and the platform’s design experts to design a piece inspired by an iconic piece of furniture by world-renowned designers such as Eames and Le Corbusier.
The designers’ works, including Stefan Scholten, Laurene Guarneri, Mae Engelgeer, Nynke Koster, will be on display at Masterly throughout the week, and will then be the stars of an online auction titled “Homage”.
The program of Masterly 2024
During Design Week, the program of Masterly-The Dutch will be packed with events. In addition to the now traditional events, more will be added this year: the Conference Room on the first floor will host a series of meetings in which the designers and artists of the Roots exhibition, starting with the project’s creator, Simone van Es, will talk about their experimental projects allowing the audience to better understand the themes and outcomes of their research.
On Wednesday morning, Federico Pompignoli will be the speaker of the Architects’ Talk. The architect founded his firm PMP Architecture after a long collaboration with OMA, during which he was project leader of Fondazione Prada Milano and worked on other projects such as the expansion of the Buffalo Museum of Art, the new American headquarters of the Phillips auction house in New York, and the Garage Museum in Moscow.
Lastly, as has been the case since the first edition, at the close of the event, on Sunday, April 21, the Milanese are invited to Palazzo Giureconsulti to receive an Orchidee Nederland orchid from Nicole and the Masterly staff.
