iSaloni 2014 exhibition “Where architects live”: most famous open their private spaces

Design Contract with a great pleasure preview iSaloni 2014 exhibition “Where architects live”– 8 exclusive installations, where world’s most respected and wanted architects open their private spaces, in Pavilion 9 of the Milan Fairgrounds. Home is a world. Home is identity, refuge, memory and future… Home can be all of these. Home has always been at the heart of the Salone del Mobile.Milano. What does it mean to you?

‘Where Architects Live‘: eight authoritative voices of international architecture open their private spaces to recount the different ways of imagining the domestic environment.
8 exclusive installations in Pavilion 9 of the Milan Fairgrounds, Rho, to reflect on the home and the culture of habitation. We know the works that Shigeru Ban, Mario Bellini, David Chipperfield, Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas, Zaha Hadid, Marcio Kogan, Daniel Libeskind and BijoyJain/Studio Mumbai have designed for the lives of others.

But where do the architects live, and what are their homes like?

By responding to this question, in Pavilion 9 they invite us to contemplate the projects, experiments, tensions and opinions on the relationship between architecture and design.
‘A room is the beginning of a city‘, Richard Rogers once said.

Shigeru Ban

With the choise of Shigeru Ban, the Pritzker Price 2014 returned to Japan for the seventh time testifying to the excellent stage of research in this country at once so fragile and so tenacious. The Pritzker has also given a twist to its traditional policy of validating the estabilished values of international critical consensus, given that the 56-year-old Ban has always insisted on the ethical role of a profession which has in recent years preferred a sensationalist approach to the basic tasks of making architecture. Shigeru Ban has been called the ‘architect of the disaster‘ for his innovative contributions to all those situations created by natural disasters both in his country and abroad. In Italy, he designed the theaterin L’Aquila using cardboard and recycled materials derived from his original research on lightweight structures. For visitors to the exhibition ‘Where architects live‘ Shigeru Ban has opened his home in Tokyo and granted an extensive interview with Francesca Molt.

Mario Bellini

Mario Bellini is an Italian architect and designer. He graduated from the Milan Polytechnic – Faculty of Architecture in 1959 and began working as an architect himself in the early 1960s. He is the winner among others of 8 Compasso d’Oro and prestigious architecture awards including the Medaglia d’Oro conferred on him by the President of the Italian Republic. Like many other Italian architects, his activities range from architecture and urban planning to product and furniture design.

David Chipperfield

David Chipperfield, founder of David Chipperfield Architects, is a professor of architecture and has lectured in schools around the world. He was also curator of the 13th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. He has won many awards and international prizes and was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2004 for services to architecture and awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2009.

Marcio Kogan

Brazilian architect Marcio Kogan and his Studio MK27 located São Paulo, Brazil, probably designs the most amazing houses in Brazil. Originally published in Metropolis Magazine as “Inside the Homes and Workspaces of 8 Great Architects“, this article shows the spaces occupied by some of the best-known architects in the world. Documented for an exhibition that will be featured at the Milan Design Week 2014, the images give a glimpse inside the private worlds of some of our favorite designers.

Doriana e Massimiliano Fuksas

Massimiliano Fuksas, one of the main protagonists of the contemporary architectural scene, has been a visiting professor at many universities and director of the VII International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale (1998-2000). He is the recipient of several prizes and awards, including the Medal of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers (2012). Along with his wife, Doriana Fuksas, he leads the Studio Fuksas with offices in Rome, Paris and Shenzhen.

Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid

Zaha Hadid is an Iraqi-British architect. She received the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2004—the first woman to do so—and the Stirling Prize in 2010 and 2011. Her buildings are distinctively neofuturistic, characterized by the “powerful, curving forms of her elongated structures”[1] with “multiple perspective points and fragmented geometry to evoke the chaos of modern life”.[2] She is currently professor at the University of Applied Arts Vienna in Austria.

Daniel Libeskind

Daniel Libeskind established his first architectural studio in Berlin after winning the competition to build the Jewish Museum. He moved to New York City when he was selected as the master planner for the World Trade Center redevelopment. Many of his projects and buildings have received worldwide acclaim.

Bijoy Jain/Studio Mumbai

Bijoy Jain, founder of Studio Mumbai, has presented his works at the XII Venice Biennale and the Victoria & Albert Museum. His projects are developed with a group of skilled artisans, technicians and draftspersons through careful consideration of the environment using traditional building techniques and simple materials.