Creative Director Mauro Lipparini managed to embody three different moods in his Italia collection for the new Casa International brand:
contemporary, timeless, and luxury chic.
But the more than 35-piece furniture collection hit us with an additional style when we attended a viewing at the Atelier showroom (a distributor of the line) at the New York Design Center in New York City: a sexy 1960s to 1970s mod. So we decided to learn a little bit more about this marriage between a Turkish furniture company and Italian product designer and see how they managed to revive that era and paint it in a fresh, new light.
Conception
One way is through a quite distinctive use of color during the development stage. “With my sketches, I was able to capture the strong character of the collection’s compositional elements by ‘assigning’ a decisive color to each, albeit unconsciously,” he explained. “Character can be developed through color, so that’s why I chose these bold hues. Strong color contrasts increase our perception of form and, in the case of these sketches, highlight the skeletal structure and muscular system, if you will, of the furniture itself.”
Production
Parent company Casa does all processes in-house at their factory in Ankara, Turkey, allowing detailed handwork to be done by their artisans in a very efficient, systematic way as nothing is outsourced. The entire line was created in just six to eight months from concept to completion thanks to it. Lipparini was inspired by the ancestral materials and craftsmanship endemic to both Turkey and Italy: smooth satin-dipped metals, muted earth-pigment lacquers, smoked and bronze glass, terracotta, brass and bronze, hammered and hairline finished copper and waxed iron. In the end, rich marbles in forest green or pearl brown, a wide selection of seven woods, and much more helped to tell the materiality story of extreme quality once the line debuted at Salone del Mobile in 2015.
Application
“I have been involved with all aspects of the brand, from the initial sketches to the end product to how we present the brand to the public,” explained Lipparini, as Casa wanted someone who could develop a complete creative package. The result was a collection that combines sophisticated minimalism with the warmth and comfort characteristic of the Mediterranean lifestyle. It also represents an ease of use as pieces can be recombined in near-endless solutions for any space.
