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
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SPECIAL REPORT / LUCE 320
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