29 July 2014
If you say marble, in Italy, up pops Paolo Ulian. In recent years the Tuscan designer has worked constantly with the material for which his region is famous and has combined this passion with research into design based on the use of discards and the minimization of waste in processing. The choice to work with discards is indeed an ethical and sustainable one, but to this noble intention is added the challenge of the complexity of control typical of Ulian’s design. For some time he has been studying the work of designers who have specialized in cutting slabs of material in such a way as to waste as little as possible, from Mari to Mangiarotti, connecting this research with his own distinctive style, which is never an end in itself but linked to a message. As is evident from his latest project, carried out in collaboration with Moreno Ratti and called 40×40, measurements that in Carrara refer unequivocally to the marmette, square tiles commonly used in the city’s craft workshops. Using these tiles as basic elements of design, the pair have proposed six objects that have been created simply by cutting them with a water jet and assembling the resulting pieces. From the same starting point come different types of object, ranging from lamps to a table, from a clock to a fruit stand. But what counts, in this case, is what you don’t get, wasted material.
+O-, led lamp, 2014.
Gerla, vase + fruit bowl, 2014.
Layer, stool, 2014.
O – ring, fruit bowl, 2014.
Piet, fruit bowl, 2014
SfridO, table, 2014.
Quadrondo, wall clock, 2013.