LUCE 320 | Page 21

Euroluce 2017 For those who crave the moon! E ntering the fieramilano exhibition site from the West Gate entrance, the Pavilion 15, the first of those hosting Euroluce, is right on our right. We are welcomed by Ingo Maurer’s stand, placed in such a strategic position that it is impossible to miss it. Among its novelties, Blow me up by Theo Möller: the light and ironic inflatable suspension, shaped as an hot-dog, sold as a kit with the necessary pump. A still very popular stand that confirms the interest for research and for a gentle form of innovative transgression. In any case, it is also the beginning of a visit that will unfold through four pavilions, among the most renowned brands, those in vogue and those in growth and development, along with some new realities here presented for the first time. This 2017 edition does not simply push on innovation, but rather contains some confirmations on technical paths and virtuous tendencies, with mature stylistic approaches resulting from a course of action undertaken for some years now. The tendency for a dual value of research is once again confirmed: the formal one, linked to the composition and in balance between the material specificity and its innovative declination, and the technological one, oriented to the increasing performances of solid state light. Actually, considering the essentiality, the minimalism and the plastic-sculptural voluptuousness, we find the expressions of a market that, when not heavily relying on original and pioneering fluid and abstract solutions, seeks renewal in the recovery of known stereotypes. This twofold potential was strongly perceivable this year, probably because the market swings between the attempt to find new ways and the rediscovery of the past, perhaps more reassuring, with a bit of nostalgia for those shapes and styles of home-dwelling that we still love. One might, for example, recall Louis Poulsen as a symbolic reference to a classical and balanced tradition of the idea of the domestic chandelier in the collective imagination. It is not by chance that the launch of the PH5-50 suspension clearly states that the restyling of a brand’s historical object is still strongly appealing. In the end, the essence of this kind of choices can be found in the sensitivity and the awareness that the soft and reassuring game of light reveals itself through a delicate compromise between technological innovation and sense of matter, finishing and colour. This is a research path that could generate whole new ideas and concepts within Euroluce’s second dimension. Between the push towards the past and the one towards the foreseeable future, the ingredients of the 3 4 SPECIAL REPORT / LUCE 320 19