Could Naples's First Design Fair Help Turn Southern Italy Into a Design Hub?
From Bali, Indonesia, to Sacramento, California, it seems a new design fair has popped up every week since the 58th edition of Salone del Mobile in Milan opened this past April. The latest is closest in location to its forebear: Edit Napoli, which will run from June 6 through 9, will be the inaugural design fair in the southern Italian city of Naples. It will present new product and furniture designs by more than 60 makers at the San Domenico Maggiore church complex in its historical heart.
Though Milan and Venice have long been respected as Italian design hubs (popular for everything from delicate glass blown in Murano to the geometric shapes of the Memphis Group), the south of the country is often overlooked. Fair founders and curators Domitilla Dardi and Emilia Petruccelli are out to change that.
The city of Naples is “a capital in the Mediterranean circuit of culture with its rich history of talented craftspeople, local manufacturing industry, and prestigious art scene,” the fair organizers stated in a release. It appears its inaugural participants would agree.
Though Edit Napoli boasts an international roster of designers, 80 percent of those exhibiting are Italian, many from outside of the northern epicenters. The fair focuses on what it calls the “designer-maker”: those who are behind every aspect of work they create, from concept to distribution. One such firm is Flatwig Studio—headquartered in London but headed by Italian-born Erica Agogliati and Francesca Avian, the duo are presenting Mama Punch, a punch set made in collaboration with artisans from both the U.K. and Italy, and inspired by their own design journey three years ago. Participating in a design fair in Naples, which brings awareness to a lesser-known part of the country, is an important opportunity, they explained to AD PRO.
“Design in Italy has always been associated as something that happens mostly in the north,” the duo explains. “We see it as a paradox, as the south of Italy is a great source of inspiration, and a part of the country where craftsmanship is still active and relevant.”
Furniture designer Antonio Aricò, who hails from Reggio Calabria in mainland Italy’s southernmost state, believes that the international knowledge base of contemporary Italian design has dropped off. Italian design history is well-known until the millennium, he says to AD PRO, citing design greats like Gio Ponti, Vico Magistretti, and the Memphis postmodernists. For Edit Napoli, his work is inspired by the fair’s theme of newness: “Going back to roots and the quality of traditions in a really new way is something particular [for] a design fair hosted in Naples,” he notes.
Other Italians showing at the fair are focusing on inspired craft as well. Gumdesign designer Laura Fiaschi and architect Gabriele Pardi are expanding their La Casa di Pietra collection of objects with roots in design history and memories, while Emanuela Sala of Piatto Unico is injecting food-inspired whimsy into her first collection of tiles.
Whether the design fair will put Naples on the map as a creative hub is yet to be seen, but inspiration is certainly plentiful for designers working or showing there. As Gae Avitabile of Tana Design says with particular emphasis, it’s the city itself that excites. “Napoli is my place: It’s an isolated nature, a continuous contradiction, an indelible imprint into my soul, ready to leave when you least expect it—everything that for me represents the concept of design.”
Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
