Formafantasma

We met and we were in the same university and we decided to go to the Netherlands together with a joint portfolio. When we studied in Florence, our teachers were pivotal figures of the Italian radical design movement, designers such as Gilberto Corretti and Paolo Deganello of Archizoom. So we came from a culture where working together and working in a group was a fundamental component.

What’s it like being back in Italy after having been in the Netherlands for so long. Is it nice?

Yes…

Totally. I mean of course at the beginning we were in love and we didn’t see any defects or any possible flaws.

You’re talking about the Netherlands?

No, about Italy. Of course we were afraid of the older bureaucratic side of Italy that is quite heavy. But I have to say, Italy also changed a lot since we moved to the Netherlands. We were in Amsterdam for over a decade and now we’re in Milan alongside having a small studio in Rotterdam. At the moment we are just enjoying all the good things that you can do in Italy. Simply just taking a train and you’re in Florence in a couple of hours, or you can get to the seaside in no time at all. All of the cliches of this country are real, and we are enjoying that a lot.

Had either of you lived in Milan before?

No, never. We first thought of moving to Sicily or Rome. But then we realised that for our studio, at this point in time, it was important to be where things happen. Milan is the design capital. We can meet easily with our clients. We’re 20 minutes in the car from where a lot of prototyping and craftsmanship is happening. That’s very helpful.

In an interview you did with Hans Ulrich Obrist when you were in the process of moving cities, you said that you were determined not to be “overruled by cocktails and aperitivi” in Milan. How’s that going?

[laughs] It’s going very well. I mean, just look at the fact that during a busy week like Salone we’re doing a symposium such as Prada Frames instead of doing a party.

We’ll be there morning ’til evening. So if people want to meet us, they come there. And I have to say that’s a bit of our attitude in general. We’re maybe a bit boring, we are not really party people.

You know what? Our life is extremely similar to what we were doing in the Netherlands because we’ve always been focusing on work, taking walks in the morning, seeing a few friends. The big difference now is we do that with better weather and better food.

Could you give some general context on what Salone is in your own words, perhaps for someone who has never been before? Because there aren’t many easy parallels. It’s not like fashion week, it’s not like a film festival. It’s not really like an art fair.

There really isn’t anything similar. It’s maybe comparable to something like a big biennale, like the art and architecture biennales in Venice, in that you both show the commercial side of things and give a platform for discussing the wider world of the discipline. But there isn’t really anything like that in the design world. I mean, there are smaller events around the world, but for us, design week in Milan is in a different category. It’s a bombastic event where almost 1 million people are flown in over a week to see objects and to meet other people within the community of design. For us it was also quite interesting that there wasn’t a platform within the city where you could actually discuss ideas.

That’s the reason why we started working with Prada on Prada Frames. It’s an opportunity to gather and discuss wider ideas that are linked to the week.

The lineup of speakers is always an interesting mix of academics and more public figures. That fine line between niche interest and mass appeal is something you seem to have embraced throughout your career. How do you strike a balance?

We tend to do things that we are interested in. We trust that if we are interested in something, other people will be interested too. It’s not out of arrogance, it’s almost the opposite. It’s more our own way of learning. We like to engage with things we don’t know, and I think people respond to that energy.

Exactly. I think the integrity and then the fact that it’s uncompromising makes it stand out. I think there are only a few companies with which you could do an event like this and Prada is one of those, because they have culture at the core.

Generally there is a perception that the so-called general public is not interested in deeper ideas. While we believe and trust that there’s always people out there who are seriously interested in things and it is just a matter of trusting the intelligence of others.

The tickets always disappear immediately, so it’s clearly popular. This year’s theme is ‘In Transit’, how might we sum that up for a broader audience?

With Prada Frames, we always want to focus on a subject that is somehow less visible within the design conversation or contemporary culture and unpack that. When you think about the biggest revolutions from the last century and this one, they were always connected to infrastructure. With the introduction of the internet or artificial intelligence, you could argue these are forms of infrastructure, of distributions of knowledge, and of information. Or the distributions of goods, if you think about Alibaba or Amazon. So we think that during a design week it’s interesting to look at these – I would almost call them hyper-objects of design. Things that have a tremendous impact on the daily life of people.

We’re at a time where global trade, or migration, or the proliferation of AI is more prominent and I’d say contested than ever. Are you planning to be quite radical or political with this symposium?

We always try to provide information and perspectives from different authors and knowledges and let the audiences form their own opinion. So it is not about enforcing specific ideologies. These are subjects that can be read in a number of ways because they are extremely relevant to the contemporary moment.

I think it’s quite important to be neutral and as Simone said, also to have people not only from different disciplines but also different stances to talk about these issues.

Which is not about being apolitical but rather to allow people to form their own ideas. But it’s true that we’re taking a stance by even looking at this subject. It’s impossible not to. For example, it’s important to acknowledge that goods travel more easily than people. We invited Marta Foresti, she’s working in legislation and she’s going to talk about migration from the perspective of the tools that are designed to enforce it, like, visas, borders and so on. Then it’s up to participants to draw their own conclusions.

Tell me more about the setting for the talks this year, it sounds amazing.

All the events will be held between two locations in Milan’s Central Station. There will be talks in the Padiglione Reale [Royal Pavilion], which was this historical waiting area for royalty and heads of state. And then everybody will move to a Gio Ponti and Giulio Minoletti-designed train that will be parked in front of the pavilion.

We’ve always been fans of this train and we never managed to see it. It’s recently been restored, so we thought if we can’t get it for a project with Prada, we will never get it. There aren’t a lot of opportunities to see it, so to make it available for people during design week is very exciting.

I have some specific questions around the event logistics. One is, will the train move?

No.

The train will be parked on a designated track in front of the pavilion. We considered the idea of moving the train and taking people on a journey, and the train station and the Italian railways have been very kind and supportive, but honestly the logistics of moving the train are insane.

It’s the biggest train station in Italy alongside Rome. There actually will be moments where the train needs to move from the track because other trains need to arrive, which is a bit of a concern. We’ve tried to scheduled the changeovers so they don’t disturb the talks but Italian trains are very famous for not being very punctual so we might run into problems. Let’s see! So in any case, the train will move, but not when there’s people on it.

The other question is, how you do talks on something as long and skinny as a train. Is it going to be like trying to watch the safety demonstration on an aeroplane?

We’ve tried to work with the strengths of the different spaces. The longer talks are in the main pavilion, and then on the train it’s a bit different and instead of a large gathering, it’s more of an opportunity to do shorter poetic interventions and readings.

Sounds lovely. I’m curious, how much involvement does Mrs. Prada have with the symposiums? Is she super hands on or does she mostly leave you to your own devices?

Well, Mrs. Prada, as we have learned through four years of collaboration, is always involved with everything. It’s great because she acts as a critical voice in the construction of the symposium. So we do have freedom in what we propose, but she always comes in with very sharp comments on the structure and in any elements she might feel that are missing and in extensive feedback on the images that are shared. So she’s involved in everything from the conception till the last detail.

Do you know if she’s excited for any talks in particular?

I’m actually not sure! She’s very unpredictable, I have to say. So I’m sure she’ll surprise us.

But in any case, we have Kate Crawford, she’s a longterm collaborator with Fondazione Prada and has just joined the steering committee. She had also been working on an exhibition there last year so I know that she’s very close to Mrs. Prada.

The artist Hito Steyerl, too.

And how about the two of you? What’s one thing not to miss?

We are going to sound very polite in saying that we are excited for everything. But for sure I’m interested in discovering more about Nicola Twilley because we’ve only ever met her online. She’s going to talk about something which seems almost banal, which is refrigeration technology. She’s going to look at that because it completely changed the way we consume and distribute food globally.

Alongside Prada Frames you’ve got a project with Cassina, and another with Flos both opening during Salone. And then I was looking at some of the things you’ve got coming up, there’s an exhibition on Shaker furniture at the Vitra Museum in the summer. You’ve also just opened an exhibition on wool production at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. You always have so much on. How do you divide your attention?

Well, we don’t work alone. When we established our office we never wanted to have our own names on it because we wanted to work as a studio and not just as an endeavour of two people. Our practise is based on conversations. It’s all about interaction with others. We like to be with other people, we like to exchange ideas.

Also, we do love the diversity of practise that we have. We can go from designing an armchair or a bookshelf, to designing a symposium for Prada. It’s so exciting that we can do different endeavours. I think we would get completely bored if we were only designing objects.

Final thing, with the ‘In Transit’ theme in mind, how do you commute to work or get around town? Do you bike, car, scooter?

Bike or metro, mostly.

I prefer to walk when I can. I do a 45 minute walk to our studio most days.

And do you have a particularly nice bicycle model or are you not so fussed?

I still have my Dutch bike with the pedal breaks.

I had one of those, too, until it got stolen. Now I have a very nice Italian bike, but I even don’t remember the name. We don’t have a particular fetish for bikes or cars.

Just for trains.

Exactly, just for Gio Ponti-designed trains.