OBR Designs Artemide Pavilion at Salone del Mobile

More than a simple exhibition space, Artemide’s pavilion is conceived as a place for gathering and exchange and envisions a polyphonic conversation among various authors: Arup, BIG, Carlo Colombo, Carlotta de Bevilacqua, Michele De Lucchi, Giulia Foscari, Foster+Partners Industrial Design, Giò Forma, Herzog & de Meuron, OBR – Open Building Research, Neil Poulton, Alessandro Pedretti, SOM - Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

The pavilion is conceived as a succession of rooms, which together give life to an architecture made of relationships, in which light acts and reacts by virtue of the dynamic exchanges between man and the environment, expressing what is in constant change. 

The pavilion is conceived as a succession of rooms, which together give life to an architecture made of relationships, in which light acts and reacts by virtue of the dynamic exchanges between man and the environment, expressing what is in constant change. 

“This pavilion is a place where light creates the pleasure of meeting,” says Paolo Brescia.

Inspired by the domus with an impluvium at the centre onto which the rooms of the various authors overlook, the pavilion is crossed by four orthogonal axes that make the internal space open on all sides, through cuts that fragment the monolithic continuity of the exterior. 

Within the orthogonality that characterizes the entire space, there is one exception: an oval room that pays tribute to Artemide’s historic authors (Gae Aulenti, Ernesto Gismondi, Vico Magistretti, Ettore Sottsass), who shaped the history of lighting design together with Artemide. 

At the heart of the pavilion, the impluvium hosts a green oasis inspired by the ecological vision of Piet Oudolf, where native plants grow in spontaneous harmony, guided by light as a structuring principle. 

But the biophilic experience does not end with the exhibition function: at the end of Euroluce, Artemide will launch an initiative to reuse plants, allocating them to the regeneration of an area in Pregnana Milanese, extending the life cycle of the installation that from temporary becomes a permanent public work. 

Similarly, the structure of the pavilion includes a reusable and reconfigurable modular system, designed to be rethought by adapting to different configurations, re-using and re-adapting the same wooden and plasterboard components, making the circular economy promoted by Artemide not only a research theme, but also a concrete practice. 

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(credit: Martina Simonato)

Project Credits 

OBR Press Office 
Arch. Floria Bruzzone, OBR 
T +39 02 84268200 
M +39 342 9169512 f.bruzzone@obr.eu 

Future Future 
Mark Bollettieri 
+1 (908) 421-2376 
mb@future-future.global