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 DESIGNING CRAFT.EUROPE


From October 7th to November 5th, 2000 in Clermont Hèrault near Montpellier was held Designing Craft.Europe, an exhibition of objects and interior decoration pieces. The exhibition will be soon reproposed in Barcelona during the international biannual exhibition Primavera del Disseny from March 29th to May 26th, 2001.
This initiative originated in 1998 from a project ideated by Unioncamere Piemonte and Regione Piemonte which, following previous positive experiences, wanted to create a concrete occasion where the world of young European designers could meet the local piemontese craftsmanship tradition. The main aim of the project was to encourage and enlarge the perspectives of local craft, to sustain its own organisation and economic promotion but also to favour the design culture, hoping to give craftsmen a new awareness about themselves and their own time.
These ambitions materialised and resulted in an international event, featuring better or less known European designers such as Gianfranco Cavaglià, Jeannot Cerrutti, Aldo Cibic, Michele De Lucchi, Giancarlo Montebello, Massimo Morozzi e Denis Santachiara.
The international contest promoted in 1998 required from participants the design of objects, interior decoration pieces and personal ornaments to be realised with completely hand-made or artisan techniques. Among the 250 projects submitted and analysed by a prestigious committee, 130 were selected and their prototype realised by those local artisans who took part to the initiative.
From the production process to the exhibition, where 103 objects were shown and described in a catalogue edited by Lindau, enriched by essays and contributions of famous design scholars. From the refined elegance of the teapot signed by De Lucchi, to the flamboyant and almost obsessive woodwork ofMarello, to the humorous mechanical bicycle designed by Granata, the exhibition was an enthusiastic mix between modern design and old, artisan know-how. The initiative received the high patronage of the European Parliament, of the Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri of Italy, of the Association for Industrial Design (ADI), and of the Society of Engineers and Architects in Turin (SIAT).
The catalogue, the awarded projects and other information on the contest and the exhibition can be found on the web site http://www.designingcraft-europe.org
Text by:
Barbara Giannessi

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