Promotion: Italian architect Elisa Ossino has designed a “tactile” showroom in Milan for Swiss home appliance brand V-Zug.
Overlooking Piazza San Marco in the Italian city’s Brera district, the space is organised into two areas – one that displays V-Zug’s home appliances and one that functions as an “interactive kitchen”.
This was designed for visitors to “feel at home and experience appliances while enjoying good conversations”, the company said.
Ossino designed the space, which will act as V-Zug’s Italian flagship, using cocciopesto flooring and limestone walls rendered in soft colours inspired by the silver finishing of the brand’s appliances.
“The narrative of the space focuses on the tactility of the material and the contrast between the mirrored surfaces of the V-Zug technological home appliances and the tactility of the stone, which is often sculptural,” Ossino told Dezeen.
“All the materials in the space are on the one hand a search for the tactility of surfaces and on the other a search for colours,” she added. “Household appliances have mirrored surfaces that lend themselves very well to dialogue with any kind of material.”
At the heart of the space sits a monolithic white limestone staircase, designed as a three-dimensional volume. A large porthole visually connects the upper area with the floor below.
V-Zug wanted to challenge “the standard showroom” by offering guests an immersive experience during Milan design week, when they could watch chefs prepare dishes using the brand’s appliances in an interactive kitchen.
Following the immersive experience, guests could browse an extensive materials library and sit around a long grey stone table while members of the V-Zug Gourmet Academy carried out demonstrations.
“It is this theme in general that has somewhat suggested the entire formal layout of the showroom, which is played out very much on a balance between nature, matter and technology,” Ossino explained.
V-Zug Milan was just one of several outposts opened by the brand in the past few months, following on the heels of showrooms in Vienna, Berlin, Hamburg and Sydney.
“With the showroom in Milan, I tried to intercept some of the subtle themes that run through our imagination, our everyday life,” said Ossino.
“We are witnessing on the one hand a great technological development – just think of artificial intelligence – in our daily lives. But at the same time we have a great need to reclaim something ancestral, a more humanistic design [that’s] closer to matter.”
The architect also designed a series of installations for the space in collaboration with art studio Henry Timi, which were on display as part of this year’s Milan Design Week 2024.
The location of the brand’s showroom in Brera was not insignificant for the designer, who drew on the district’s “extraordinary” history when designing the space.
“I would say that the whole space is about a meeting of matter, technology and craftsmanship,” she said.
“In Italy, we have an incredible tradition in the world of craftsmanship and it is a knowledge that tends to get lost. There is a strong process underway at this time in history to valorise it, which is also very much linked to this ancestral need to reconnect with the material.”
The space’s sleek lines and sculptural minimalism also pay homage to V-Zug’s Swiss roots.
“For us, it was important to convey a sense of hospitality,” added V-Zug global interior art director Gabriel Castelló Pinyon.
“We have tried to speak the language of the city: to be bolder and to work a lot with natural materials,” said the brand. “In Milan, people always expect something different. But it’s still V-Zug – it’s still minimalistic with clean lines.”
V-Zug Studio Milan co-hosted an exhibition at Sala della Passione. Pinacoteca di Brera showcased an installation designed by Ossino in collaboration with Henry Timi. For more information, visit V-Zug’s website.
Partnership content
This article was written by Dezeen for V-Zug as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.
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