"Creating architectural spaces and objects that stimulate people. The passion for design, for architecture, is like a vocation. This is confirmed by Mario Mazzer, one of the greatest exponents of industrial design, a professional who at the age of 16 realised which path to take. It was enough for him to walk into a beer hall in Milan to be fascinated by the furniture, and the objects, designed to create a relationship with the spaces. Because everything revolves around space. Whether it is even a house, the size of the rooms, the height of the walls, does not matter. Those, emphasises the designer who studied with masters such as Castiglioni and Zanuso, are nothing but 'relationships of scale'.
Architect, let's start with the latest creations. "X" Collection, designed for Alma Design. From armchairs to stools, what is the element that unites the entire collection?
"X" is an extensive collection suitable for both home and contract use. The idea behind this project was to identify a recognisable element at the point where the chair shell joins the various structures. A plastic or wooden X highlights the lower structure on the top and conceals the fastening.
What is your personal definition of Industrial Design?
It must improve the quality of life through innovation and allow, through a process of problem solving, to create products that have a high functional and formal property. In my opinion, by formal property I mean a high capacity to express cultural values. Today, production with limited editions is more reminiscent of the world of art than of design, and indicates that the task is precisely to express other values besides the aesthetic ones. Thanks to digital design and realisation, there is the possibility of mass-producing diverse objects and making designers the new Makers. This could change all the rules we know and bring us back to a new Renaissance.
How important, if at all, is the comparison with your 'colleagues' in order to grasp changing trends?
We talk about trends because they are in the air, because society is constantly fluctuating and changing, and the designer just needs to be able to pick up on the new ferments. The fairs and places
of comparison serve to make you realise whether you still have the inclination and, as a logical consequence, the drive and creativity to do this work.
To date, what cultural baggage have the masters Achille Castiglioni and Marco Zanuso left you?
They are the foundations on which Italian design is based, and without these two illustrious references, Italian design would perhaps not even exist today. For me, they remain the tracks on which to proceed into the future, creating objects with an elegance as mathematicians can understand it, where harmony, economy of signs and functional correspondence to purpose coexist.
Between private house designs, residential complexes and villa restorations, his name appears among the number ones internationally. But what is his 'great love'?
I must have been sixteen years old when, by chance, I entered the Castiglioni brothers' Spügen Brau brewery in Milan. I was thunderstruck and immediately knew what I would do when I grew up: create architectural spaces and objects that relate to and stimulate people. Both architecture and design, through creativity, deal with space or create objects that have a strong relationship with it, and that is what interests me. The rest is just a relationship of scale, even though I love designing single-family dwellings because, like the chair, they are extremely difficult to cut and imbue with personality.
Are conferences and meetings intended for cultural debate where designers take 'cues' from various competitors or is there a lot of secrecy about their own design ideas?
Today, an idea, in order to be successful, needs a lot of marketing and communication support and, like fashion, must be in line with the trend. So the ideas produced are already in the air or in social, and we are probably aware that innovation is not exclusive.
The new Vittorio Veneto Medical Centre as an environmentally sustainable facility. Is this an idea that was also born with the intention of giving patients a healthier place?
My studio tries to make architecture designed for
those who live in it and for those who use it, because architecture does not consist of dimensions: the height, length and width of walls, but of the capacity of walls to generate, in both full and empty spaces, significant harmonies that enhance the value of the-
space. The Vittorio Veneto Medicine Centre is part of a corporate identity project that began with the first Centre in Conegliano Veneto. Today there are 25 eco-friendly centres, wellness places with the use of warm materials and layouts designed to put the patient and staff at ease.
How does an established architect draw inspiration to 'never repeat' his ideas?
The creative process always starts from pre-existing elements, just as innovation starts from tradition. It is the new technologies that allow design leaps and help not to repeat themselves. I believe that the world of construction in the last 10 years has changed completely.
