furniture that had belonged to the nobles and were now property of
the two museums. The items date back to the seventeenth, eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, and had never been exhibited in public
before.
Ten of the items were later restored thanks to ColomboStile’s econo-
mic support.
The concept of the exhibition, which was organized by the Milan
based Studio Sigla, was to propose a dialectic confrontation between
furniture of the past and of the present, having in common precious
materials and elaborate craftsmanship.
Sofas, chaise longues, small tables, chairs, armchairs, tables, console
tables - the items represented various categories of furniture highlighting
exquisite working techniques: wood and pearl inlays, gildings, patinated
works, surprise decorations.
The modern items, chosen to match the historical ones for category,
shape, materials and woodworking techniques, were picked among
ColomboStile’s ample production range, with particular attention to
rare and fine materials and care for details.
Among these items: a writing desk made by Maurizio Chiari in
seventeenth century style, a beautiful silver-leaf chest of drawers by
Carlo Rampazzi and the carved woods of his Africa collection, the
tables, a sofa, a chest of drawers, all rusticated and gilded, made by
Hierro Desvilles.
The comparison between past and present woodworking techniques
yielded surprising results and revealed the extraordinary quality of
certain contemporary Italian manufacturing, of which ColomboStile
is a leader.
The industrial area around Meda includes countless small artisan
workshops, specializing in rare, sophisticated techniques. They can
still apply methods and processes developed in Renaissance times,
combining manual ability with modern industrial production systems.
“The Precious Furnishing, Past and Present” exhibit, which lasted
from 16th November 2001 to 20th January 2002, was held in Moscow
at the All-Russian Museum of Applied and Folk Art.
The exhibition included wondrous paintings made by the students
of the Stroganov State University of Industrial and Applied Arts in
Moscow representing, in a one to one scale, the historical furniture on
show. The great public success and favourable reviews determined
ColomboStile to strengthen its ties with the State Historical Museum.
Together they formulated the project of reproducing historical furniture.
An agreement was signed laying the basis for cooperation and specifying
certain procedures, such as how to measure the various features of
the original items, what new philological interpretation they should be
given, the possibility of making changes, if any, and the subsequent
marketing of the furniture set.
Fundamental to the development of the project, in his role as a
coordinator, was architect Maurizio Chiari, who was appointed by
ColomboStile early 2002.
PHILOLOGICAL INTERPRETATIONS
Maurizio Chiari, who has been working with ColomboStile from the
beginning as a designer and collaborator, producing a number of
award-winning furniture sets, was a decisive factor in making the
project come alive. In his hands, single pieces of furniture, each one
different in making, materials, period, and apparently inconsistent
which each other, were made into a bold collection where morphological
individuality is respected but also harmonically arranged together
under a masterly overall perspective.
Drawing from his cultivated and refined aesthetic conceptions, Chiari,
who passed away unexpectedly in March 2003, found new modern
aspects in his philological reading of the original pieces, limiting his
own interventions to a few delicate touches, refreshing certain details
which the overzealous artist had made too heavy through additions
or repetitions.
Maurizio Chiari took up this demanding task with joy, driven by his
great interest for Russian culture and art.
Born in Parma from an old industrial family, Chiari was among the
most cultured and refined expressions of Italian design and interior
decorating in the second half of the twentieth century.
He worked for many important industrial families in Italy, and also
for film directors such as Luchino Visconti, Mauro Bolognini and
Mario Monicelli, as well as for American directors. Chiari was extremely
rigorous in his studies, to the point of being punctilious, yet he always
remained a fully creative artist, an intellectual with a penchant for fun
and irony, a cultivator of classic “ludus” (play) - the art of subtle
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