10 things from Milano Design Week 2009

We tried to pick out for you the best 10 things seen at the Milano Design Week 2009. 

Zanotta exhibited Trans-forma, a series of classics revisited by young designers of Fabrica: Catarina Carreiras, Goncalo Campos, Sam Baron... One of the more interesting ones was the upside down version of Castigiorni's moon landing. 

Rolf.fr intervenes brutally on antique furniture, on pieces of no particular value, just old, cut up with a chain saw, transformed into something else, brought to life, shaped for today.

Sam Baron together with Fabrica made 10 useless vases, that combine daily objects and bell jars. One of the very rare pleasures of this years Salone Satellite. 

The other peek of the Satellite (and the last) is a project by the Hungarian Akos Maurer Klimes e Peter Kucsera for cement made products Ivanka. A grave stone, on whose surface is drawn a concave cross, that is brought to evidence when the rain water gathers in its indents. 

The space saving vase by Joe Velluto for Plust Collection is inspired by the squashing of PET bottles before they are thrown away. The vase is squashed as soon as it is extracted from the mould, still intact and still a vase. 

"Tokyo fiber '09 Senseware" in Triennale reconferms yet again the Japanese superiority in technical knowledge in the field of technology. Blocks of cement with inserts of optical fibres that allow the light to pass; traditional Japanese lanterns shaped like jellyfish, fungi and viruses, but made out of a a joint-free material; drops that drip fron hydro-repellent materials in order to create the effect of the drop falling from a lotus flower; chairs lighter than the Superlight chair, embossed beams that contain light, parquet cleaning robots etc...

Rossana Orlandi housed a series of objects made out of plastic "plastic fandangos" by Commitee, declared useless and shaped familiarly. This is where the game ends. They invite us to reflect on the origin of daily forms, why it is shaped one way other than another... but without thinking about it too much. 

The Barber Osgerby duo, this years stars of the salone, apart from the Tab lamp for Flos, presented for Venini a series of 3 marine lanterns, elegant, refined, coloured by the shape of the choice of the material. 

Pact by Studiotonino for Danese is a packaging-vase, with earth and plant seeds of residual spaces (see Gilles Clement and The Third Landscape). Once opened, all it needs is water, the packaging stays and it does not need a ne