“MATERIAL IMMATERIAL” is the name of the much anticipated exhibition event conceived by the monthly magazine INTERNI, which this year reaches the significant milestone of its twentieth edition.

With the patronage of the City of Milan, “MATERIAL IMMATERIAL” will run as part of the FuoriSalone from today until 15 April in the courtyards of the University of Milan, at the Orto Botanico in Brera and, for the first time, in Corso Venezia 11, where INTERNI has expanded the reach of its urban animation.

In addition to protagonists from Italy, the magazine has involved many designers from around the world, from – Japan, China, Brazil, Russia, Denmark, USA, Great Britain and Poland – in collaboration with companies, start-ups and institutions, it an attempt to create a varied mosaic of styles and vision. The designers include: Ron Arad with Illy, Alessandro and Francesco Mendini with Elegant Living, Shop Architects with NBK and Metalsigma, Simone Micheli with Valsir, Italo Rota with MR, Kat Von D and Another Space with Sephora, Michele De Lucchi with Ferragamo Parfums and Moretti Costruzioni, the studio BIG with Artemide, Antonio Citterio and Patricia Viel with Marazzi, Massimo Iosa Ghini with Ceramiche Cerdisa, and many more.

“The theme of our exhibition event, now in its 20th edition, invites visitors to explore the double soul of the design: on the one hand the universe of actual production, which with materials – wood, ceramics, metals, plastics and natural fibres – constitutes the physical essence of design; and, on the other, the immaterial dimension of creation, starting from the thinking of the designer, increasingly supported by digital technologies and upcoming virtual reality, who identifies the areas of research for the near future,” explained Gilda Bojardi, editor of INTERNI. “In creating these experimental and interactive installations, we work with leading companies in the field of innovation and research, with companies representing internationally established brands and small niche producers that support entrepreneurship and creativity,” the magazine’s editor concluded.

Co-producer of the initiative is Audi, the premium brand of the Volkswagen Group, which at the Audi City Lab, in Corso Venezia 11, presents with INTERNI a series of meetings entitled the Future Needs Stories. The spaces of the former Seminario Arcivescovile, the gate to which will be illuminated by an installation created by Ingo Maurer, will host discussions about the relationship between man and artificial intelligence along with the presentation of the  installation Sonic Pendulum by Yuri Suzuki.

Also the music of R101, the official radio of “INTERNI MATERIAL IMMATERIAL”, will enliven the evening of Friday 7 April (from 9 pm) with a exclusive concert by Levante, followed a Vinyl DJ Set curated for by its music designers. The radio station will also have an interactive installation designed by Lorenzo Palmieri that will invite visitors to play the role of a DJ and select and play their own playlists in the Main Courtyard.

The INTERNI system

In April of the INTERNI integrated communication system multiplies: 4 print publications (INTERNI, INTERNI Panorama, the free sheet INTERNI King Size and the FuoriSalone Guide), a big event (“INTERNI MATERIAL IMMATERIAL”) and INTERNI online (website, apps, and social). These tools enable readers and users to be updated in real time on trends, innovations and advances in design and reaffirm the role of INTERNI as a leading information system for the world of design. In fact, the magazine is transformed from a trade into mass market media publication, an authentic guide and handbook for anyone who wants to know about and orient themselves within a unique event like the FuoriSalone.

The numbers of the INTERNI system

With this event, that gives Milan unique and exceptional visibility, INTERNI confirms its absolute leadership in the professional living segment but also in the design communication system. Further evidence can be seen from the data of the entire INTERNI ecosystem: 55,000 copies of INTERNI, 200,000 copies of INTERNI/Panorama, 120,000 copies of INTERNI King Size, 250,000 copies of the FuoriSalone Guide, a total print run of over 620,000 copies, 4,000,000 readers and 1,200 pages.

The strength of the brand is also clearly visible outdoors: in fact, for “MATERIAL IMMATERIAL” an important campaign of street advertising has been planned including banners in 15 locations in central Milan, 1,000 flags for around 500 events, 10 shuttle bus backs, as well as totems, decorated newsstands, floor-graphics, station domination (Rho and Cadorna), window display and/or LED walls (Megastore Mondadori in Piazza del Duomo and the Rizzoli Store in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele).

To find your way around the increasingly rich  landscape of events during the Milan Design Week, we could not forget the FuoriSalone® Guide – also available as a free app for iPad, iPhone and Android operating systems (tablets and smartphones) – which offers a detailed summary of over 400 events and a day by day calendar of events involving the companies, designers and architects participating in the FuoriSalone, Milano and the Zee Guide Milan (in digital form only and included with the app) with a selection of new itineraries and fashionable spaces in the city: from design to shopping, department stores to restaurants and hotels.

Download the press pack here: http://www.internimagazine.it/press/leaflet.pdf

What is it that makes so many Italian design objects authentic icons? To explain, INTERNI has produced a special collectors’ issue dedicated to these inimitable objects and their creators. ITALIAN DESIGN ICONS examines the evolution of design and style for living through over 500 iconic italian products produced since 1954. Furniture and accessories very different from each other for their historical, linguistic and cultural characteristics but which have, however, an essential common denominator: they are all still in production and available, both in Italy and abroad..

“ITALIAN DESIGN ICONS is a special issue that continues the overview of Italian design offered by INTERNI in 2014 with the volume produced to celebrate the magazine’s 60^th anniversary.” 60 said the editor Gilda Bojardi. “Following the same timeline, divided by decades, this illustrated story aims to promote Made in Italy around the world with a series of critical reflections on creativity, talent, the capacity to respond to stimuli and ideas from the history of design, new approaches, as well as from the global scenario and transformations in manufacturing and production,” the editor concluded.

The collection of iconic products is enhanced also by the testimony of 24 internationally renowned designers who discuss and explain their most important and representative work through a sort of design self-portrait. The volume ends with some considerations about what some of the icons of tomorrow might be. In other words, products of today that define contemporary trends in living and create the new bases for new expressive languages.

ITALIAN DESIGN ICONS will receive an official preview this week, during Art Basel Miami Beach 2016, on the occasion of the exhibition “1958, The Birth Of Two Legends: Italian Monochrome and Sanlorenzo shipyard”(from 29 November to 1 December), organised on board a ship of more than 30 metres built by Sanlorenzo, the boat-builder, that began operations in 1958 and is now the world’s second producer of yachts of over 24 metres, in collaboration with the historic gallery Tornabuoni Arte.

The volume, which will have an extra print-run of 3,500 copies in English with an Italian translation, will also be distributed at the leading design showrooms in the city.

ITALIAN DESIGN ICONS has been supported by many of the best and most representative brands in the design sector and beyond, contributing to the excellent results of the INTERNI systems that will end 2016 with a 6% increase compared with 2015.

With 188 pages and contributions from well-know critics– Cristina Morozzi, Marco Romanelli and Matteo Vercelloni – ITALIAN DESIGN ICONS will be available from all good newsstands from 6 December as a supplement to the new edition of the magazine at the price of €10 (including the magazine).

INTERNI, the interiors and contemporary design magazine edited by Gilda Bojardi, has been transformed from a printed title to an international integrated communication system that this month will launch its first editorial initiatives dedicated to Mexico City: a monographic issue  entitled “United Mexican Design” and a “Design Guide Mexico City/Milano”, with the aim of helping foreign visitors find their way around a megalopolis of around 21 million inhabitants with the aid of design-oriented itineraries.

The publications, both of which are in Spanish and English, will have a special print run of 10,000 copies and will be distributed around Mexico City  at bookstores, museums, schools, galleries, showrooms and hotels. The official presentation of the monograph and guide will take place on 4 October at the Italian Embassy in the presence of authorities, and on 7 October at the Soumaya Museum, with architects, operators and the organisers of the project.

Both publications look at issues related to the current situation of Mexico City/CDMX, with regard to architecture, design and art, also in terms of multiple and interweaving linguistic expressions.

INTERNI United Mexican Design

The monographic issue of INTERNI with over 260 pages, is introduced with  the institutional voice of Miguel Ángel Mancera Espinosa, head of the capital’s government, who underlines the dynamism of Mexico in the design field and Giovanni Anzani, chairman of Assarredo, who highlights how a dialogue between Italian design and the local reality offers new and significant opportunities for exchange. Pino Cacucci, the Italian writer of fiction and non-fiction, looks ate the colours of Mexico, the atmosphere and personalities, while a discussion of the leading figures in contemporary Mexican architecture is left to Fernando Romero, Javier Sordo Madaleno, Tatiana Bilbao, Victor Legorreta, Pedro Reyes and Carla Fernandez, and Mauricio Rocha.

Art, meanwhile, is examined the an emblematic overview by Pedro Friedeberg, Pedro Reyes and Raymundo Sesma/Advento Art Design, as well as authoritative testimony by the likes of Juan A. Gaitán for museums; Ricardo Salas Moreno for graphics and the design schools (Universidades Anahuac) and many more – as well as a look at the designers that represent Mexico in Italy and around the world. Finally, two studios created in Milan by the editorial team of INTERNI interpret “suggestions from Mexico”, where Italian design encounters the siesta and the idea of “relax”.

Guida “Design Guide Mexico City/Milano”

The first edition of the Mexico City/Milano Guide (which joins the other International Guides to Milan, New York, Paris, Moscow) meanwhile is a companion in the discovery of places and areas of the city through design itineraries: art and design galleries, museums, hotels, restaurants, specialised bookstores, schools, as well as flagship stores, monobrand and multistores where the best product of the companies that represent Italian design can be found.

INTERNI will take part in the first edition of Press Café organised during the Cersaie 2016 fair in Bologna (26-30 September), the international trade exhibition for ceramics for architecture and bathroom fittings. On this occasion, the interiors and contemporary design magazine  edited by Gilda Bojardi, has prepared an exclusive space “INTERNI Café” (Pad. 21 – Stand B77) which will be the stage for a cycle of three encounters with some of the leading exponents from the world of architecture and design.

The format for these encounters is based on the tradition of the  literary café, but focused on the current issues and culture of design, from an account of surface space to virtuous relationships between designers and companies.

The cycle begins on Monday 26 September at 2.30 pm with Il Design delle relazioni (Design relationships): Matteo Ragni in conversation with Paolo Cesana, both actively engaged in design, the former as a well-known designer and the latter as a business leader in his role as marketing director of Ceramiche Refin. But, interestingly, they have never met before. INTERNI, in line with its role as an activator of “creative short-circuits” between the design and business worlds, will give them an opportunity to get to know each other and to discuss issues of common interest for the first time.

The second event, on Tuesday 27 September, at 10 am, meanwhile, will feature a conversation Un racconto che parte dalle superfici (A story that begins from surface areas)  that will bring together face-to-face  the designer Diego Grandi and the chief executive of Lea Ceramiche Emilio Mussini: a tried and tested duo (whose association began back in 2003), and a demonstration that a harmony of intention and curiosity, combined with reciprocal respect, can give rise to daring solutions and great success.

The final of the three events will take place at 3.30 pm, again at INTERNI Café, on the theme of Il senso del design (The Sense of Design). In this case the guests will be Giulio Iacchetti, one of the most renowned names in the new Italian design, and Alberto Cristina, chairman and chief executive of Cristina Rubinetterie. Together they will attempt to highlight the human, intimate and affective aspect of design: the thing that has enabled Italy to achieve cultural and manufacturing excellence by virtue of the system of fruitful relations that has been built up, also at the personal level,  between designers and industrialists.

The walls of INTERNI Café will reproduce an interpretation of Diego Grandi by Type 32, a surface design project for Lea Ceramiche. Meanwhile, Plust Collection, the Euro3plast design brand will provide the furnishings and fittings for the space.

For more information, please go to www.internimagazine.it

The exhibition-event INTERNI OPEN BORDERS, presented during the FuoriSalone 2016, moves to Piacenza. From today to 16 October 2016 three of the city’s key locations – Palazzo Rota Pisaroni, Palazzo Farnese and Galleria d’Arte Moderna Ricci Oddi – will host 9 installations, macro-objects, micro-constructions and exhibitions that explore how the boundaries between different disciplines have been overcome. The issue is treated as the extension of a design vision towards new synergies and the application of architecture and design to evolving sectors such as technology and research into sustainability.

INTERNI has involved Italian designers of international calibre with different backgrounds and experience with a view to creating a mosaic of styles and visions and to compare the different character and interpretations of design. They include: Stefano Boeri Architetti with Filiera del Legno FVG and Consorzio Innova FVG; Patricia Urquiola with Cleaf; Carlo Ratti Associati, Marco Ferreri with Cacciati Costruzioni Restauri, Tom Vack with Moroso, Davide Groppi, Vito Di Bari with Metalco Active, Emiliana Martinelli with Martinelli Luce and Leucos.

THE PIACENZA & VIGEVANO FOUNDATION supports innovation, research and creativity. And it is in this light that with INTERNI the Foundation has activated a strong synergy that has led to the realisation of original projects and the presentation of a cultural vision that aims to have a significant impact on the city of Piacenza and the upcoming Festival del Diritto (23-25 September 2016).

The INTERNI OPEN BORDERS PIACENZA exhibition is open from Monday to Thursday, from 9 am to 6 pm, and from Friday to Sunday, from 9 am to 10 pm. Moreover, on 24 September, on the occasion of the “Giornate del Patrimonio”, the exhibition sites will remain open until midnight with free guided tours of the installations in the Palazzo Farnese at 9 pm, 9.45 pm, 10.30 pm and 11.15 pm.

For more information, please go to: www.lafondazione.com e www.internimagazine.it