Milan Design Week 2017: Studiopepe’s “The Visit”
An exhibition addressing the intimacy of interior design
How do we offer access and exclusivity through design at the same time? How do we maintain intimacy in the age of social media? These are questions that seem to have yielded one of our favorite projects at Milan Design Week this year; “The Visit” by Studiopepe. Set inside the Brera Design Apartment, a private space of multiple identities in the heart of Brera (one of the most elegant and design-savvy neighborhoods of Milan), the installation was arranged in and as a real home. It was a space begging to be lived in, far from the classic commercial presentations and galleries just outside.
“The Visit” extended afterward the festival, but reservations were required throughout. In a way public and private at the same time, the exhibition offered a peaceful reprieve during design week’s hectic scheduling. Arianna Lelli Mami and Chiara Di Pinto, founders of Studiopepe, were always present to welcome guests and eager to describe every single detail of the never boring, always elegant space. Vintage pieces, works of art, colorful walls, masterful lighting, materials of all sorts—everything united to create a game of contrasts. This was Studiopepe’s manifesto, and their most complete project to date. Further, it reflects the values of the new Milanese interior design movement.
The project was born in a private moment, in one of the most famous design spots in Milan, Lelli Mami explains to us. “More than a single product or set-up,” she says, “We wanted to tell a rite, a gesture, that of visiting the intimate dimension of the apartment. It all began from a chat between Chiara and me at Bar Basso.” All of this intimacy is evident through the experience.
Entering felt like a visit to a friend’s home. The reason why is simple, “After working for projects in larger spaces, showrooms and fairs, we were looking for a more intimate dimension, [that would be] able to unveil what we are and what we like through details. This is the intimate atmosphere that we would like to bring—even in a non-domestic project, like a hotel,” Lelli Mami says. “When we design our objects, we always think of a house, where to place them, and what kind of person may like them. As creative directors, we love each project to tell a story.” In fact, being at “The Visit” one could imagine stories about the possible inhabitants of the place, and narratives that could originate a novel or even a movie.
Studiopepe’s touch and taste in interior design becomes clearer and clearer with every project. When we ask Lelli Mami about their artistic and cultural references she explains, “We love Gio Ponti a lot and all the design milieu of those years, where there was really a happy design vision and an intense intellectual exchange between creative minds. We love a delicate, intense and ironic feminine touch, from Charlotte Perriand to Sonia Delaunay, to Nanda Vigo and Natalie du Pasquier.
At an artistic level Brancusi is, for us, an inexhaustible source of inspiration and joy, for its very strong, hard yet poetic, masculine—in antithesis to what has been said before.”
“Our work allows us to continue to discover and look at what may seem common or everyday with ever-new eyes, this is a great deal of privilege,” she continues. “Being a duo and having a studio with several people will definitely help in this process. We would like to find a container to carry out this research and to systematize it. And eventually in our near future there will be a book.” We look forward to their continued evolution.
Images by Paolo Ferrarini
