Friday, November 26, 2010

Design Mirrors: reflecting the world we live in

The mirror is great piece of furniture and what is even better is that it reflects and frames our world like a work of art.

An Italian design mirror is a house element that, in the wake of aestheticism and philosophy, inspired endless stories, theories and games (illusion games, reality distortion...). A mirror can do everything: can give us a truthful image of ourselves or a distorted one, it can tell us the truth or lie. The one thing it cannot do is looking within our soul.

Or maybe not. I think a mirror can do that too, and it can do it in two ways: the first one is to consider a mirror something way more important than the rest: if we decide to entrap our soul inside it, like Dorian Gray did, we will end up seeing nothing more than our reflection and losing ourselves inside it, as Narcissus did a while ago.
The second one is, more cathartic and creative, to place the mirror in a strategic place inside our house and let it reflect in the most truthful way our soul, painted and spread on the walls, furniture, accessories and objects. Infact, if we have created our house following our image and our most intimate personality, the mirror could do nothing but give that personality back to us, in an even clearer image compared to what our eyes usually see.

It's entirely a question of choosing the right Italian design mirror and then find out where to put it; in this way it can reflect the real nature of our home-soul and also, if necessary or if we desire, it can visually expand the surrounding space. A mirror, all by itself, is able to create a so called "optical illusion", magically doubling the room at your disposal.

Fold mirror by Calligaris, for example, can perfectly be used for expanding the visual space, as I said before, especially if approached to other Fold mirrors; allowing the soul of the other furniture pieces to be clearly visible.

Emerald octagonal mirror, is going to give a touch of luxury to your house but most importantly, thanks to its mirrored glass frame, it will be able to reflect your environment from different fragmented point of views.

Aurora oval mirror with iron decorations bring us back to the past, to that fairytale world placed out of time, a world where Cinderella and Sleepy Beauty really exist, a word of magic where mirrors always reflect the truth.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Design Armchairs: Egg Chair by Arne Jacobsen


The evocative Egg Chair design armchair is one of the most distinctive pieces of design, an icon of a comfortable and aesthetically pleasing environment

Egg Chair was designed by the well-known designer Arne Jacobsen in 1958 to furnish the exclusive Royal SAS Hotel in Copenhagen becoming immediately famous as the first swivel covered and upholstered chair, together with Swan Chair.

The evocative name "Egg" refers to its rounded shape, or viceversa: in this case we can correctly say we don't know which came first, the chicken or the egg.

You just need to know that the egg, as a mystic concept, sometimes related to religion or philosphy is characterized by a particular shape, that has inspired and is inspiring nowadays designers, as metaphor of life.

In Jacobsen's mind, Egg Chair is believed to represent a shell as protection for men, creating a comfortable and intimate shelter.

Conceived as sofa, Egg Chair seems to be inspired by Eero Saarinen and his Womb Chair, even if lot of people support the idea Jacobsen's version is a more completed project.


Object of desire for all design addicted, Egg Chair keeps glamour and elegance, suspended between avanguard and the sophisticated cosmopolitan style, and it brings its futuristic spirit in all rooms.

Egg Chair is available with eco-leather or leather cover, in a lot of endless colours, to turn your living room, your office, your bedroom into a private and homely relaxing room.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Custom Italian chaise longues: a place for rest and memories

When you buy a chaise longue you also bring home a piece of History. A design chaise longue accords you a great degree of relaxation while bearing an important name.

Chaise longue: an antique name for a modern piece of furniture; an antique furniture with a modern look.

Chaise longue history finds its origin in the unforgettable lines of antique seats, and if we look carefully we can still notice them in some empty corners of antique residences, memories of past ages.

I wonder how many things a chaise longue had seen during its history; how many faces it carefully observed, how many bodies it welcomed and how many love affairs it concealed or, at the contrary, revealed. A direct offspring of ottomans and asymmetric veilleuse from French 18th Century, niece of fainting sofas from the beginning of the 19th Century, sister of the dormeuse, the chaise longue brings with itself a huge genetic memory, mysterious as well as fascinating.

A design chaise longue is characterized by curvy lines, expressly made to help rest and to follow the body while relaxing; a modern essence that doesn't forget its antique ancestors. This dualism is, nowadays, expressed by new materials that fit like new clothes on young people, discovering a brand new style.

Please, come and take a look with me at some of these custom Italian chaise longues, and be aware that by taking one at home with you, you will also take a whole series of memories, adventures, betrayals and madness belonging to the past; a wonderful mix we call History.

The first in line is, without a doubt, Le Corbusier chaise longue; excellent example of the "resting machine", starting point of a long new history, written by modern design. The cover is available in leather or cavallino leather and in different colours that gives an exotic and classic touch with no equal.



Sylvester upholstered leather chaise longue, the more elegant and extreme evolution of méridienne antique lines, is covered in leather and has precious and delicate chromed metal details.

Van der Rohe chaise longue reaches the extreme point where essentiality is mandatory and where there's no need for clothes, crinolines, silks from antique ages anymore: there's only what you need to rest completely at ease, dreaming about the past.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Table and Floor Lamps: warm and soft atmospheres

Table and floor lamps are essential furniture accessories to create the right atmosphere as well as to enlighten different areas of your home. Relaxing areas, reading areas or home office areas can be einlightened by this kind of lamps, easy to be assembled and to be moved near a socket.

Also because, according to the chosen materials, lamps can become wonderful colourful light sources. To give life to warm atmospheres, like something between mistery and reality, you should dare with orange or red colours.To create relaxing atmospheres, green or light blue lights are the most suitable: they are cold colours, that help your mind to relax a bit.

Where putting your lamp? Simply! Wherever you want!

Table lamps find their space easily: the writing desk in an office or on the nightstand, used during the evening and night, a private environment, an extremely privileged place,that accompanies us towards the end of the day and Morfeo's arms.

On the other hand, floor lamps are suitable for relaxing or reading areas, for example near an armchair or a sofa; moreover, floor lamps can enlighten shady areas, darker, less reassuring corners. In this case our lamp function is to make these spaces good looking and pleasant.

Raduga floor Lamp by Cattelan is for example a top seller: the perfect furniture accessory to enrich your living area, allowing to create a soft atmosphere, but also to watch Tv or to chat with friends. Key of success of Raduga lamp is the particular arched shape and the square base, available in marble.

Cindy design table lamp by Kartell, with its vintage shape, inspired to the typical abat-jour of 70s, look wonderful in a bedroom or as accent for a sideboard.

Lastly, Orion oval lamp by Calligaris: available both as floor and table lamp, it represents the ideal solution for modern and young living rooms. Thanks to its oval shape and materials ( painted metal and methacrylate), Orion makes literally your guests and relatives dive into a bath of vitality, evoking far far places and seasons.


Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Minimal design bookcases: a pleasant contradiction

"Minimal" Italian design bookcases hold a slight contradiction within themselves: if you think about it, a bookcase cannot be by definition a minimal piece of furniture or at least it doesn't completely respond to the widely used standards of this style that has became so famous nowadays.

The main purpose of a bookcase if, obviously, to hold and keep sorted several objects, especially books; but clearly the final effect is far from what we expect a minimal furniture to be. The mere fact of filling and showing objects all at once, transform a design bookcase in something completely opposite to minimal. The only kind of bookcase that may, in a way, elude this concept is a bookcase with doors, but in this case we are also quite distant to the standard idea we have of a bookcase.

However, there are Italian design bookcases that show a minimalist soul, not only in the final effect you will get once they're filled, but also in the very concept of their structural lines. We can call them inherently minimal, because they respond to determined standards and rules.

And which are these determined standards and rules? Well, first of all minimalism needs essentiality, basically only what it's strictly necessary, without frills. For examples clean and regular lines, with a precise geometry; neutral colours, avoiding too bright tones; materials which are either visually light, as glass, or treated in a way that they reflect the environment around and expand the visual space even more.

Chicago glass wall bookcase is the perfect example of a minimal and essential piece of furniture: transparent glass shelves, support reduced to the minimum and fastened to the wall. This bookcase can perfectly be disguised with elegance in the surrounding environment, giving all the emphasis and attention to books and objects.

Fifty modular wall bookcase embodies minimalism in another way: its shelves comes out of the wall like pushed by an invisible hand that also mould them in different shapes. The result is a furniture piece with essential lines and structure.

Dna free standing design bookcase expresses yet another idea; even though, thanks to its evocative shape, Dna gives life to real imaginative and pronounced book combinations, is still in fact composed by essential elements. A central support and shelves at different heights, with reduced and already-established measures. A piece of furniture designed in this way will produce irresistible combinations of order and disorder, that can give to nice houses an unmistakable flavour.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Stone Tables and Furniture Accessories: Italian hand-crafted products

Today I want to speak with you about Italian tables and furniture accessories made of stone by LDM Italia.

LDM Italia is the acronym for Laboratorio del Marmo : a Venetian hand-crafted workshop, that has made furnishing accessoires and designer pieces in Vicenza Stone since 1973.
Artists, architects and famous designers of LDM have been asked to interpret a new way of using stone materials in contemporary house interiors, distancing from the tradional role of decoration and becoming a real protagonist of modern and design furniture.

Vicenza Stone is a sedimentary rock. It is characterized by the presence of fossils, which enhance its materiality and make the works of art more precious .The rock is mined from the Berici hills,in Veneto.
This type of rock offers both excellent structural qualities and, at the same time, a very expressive design.This is also the example of the wonderful Venetian villas, designed by the architect Andrea Palladio in the 16th century.


The sculptures, inspired by classical principles, are hand-carved in workshops according to traditional techniques and for this reason each sculpture is a unique piece, offering the additional value without being mass-produced.
Taking a clay model as reference, after roughing out, the object is finally sculptured in every detail. Finishing consists in rasping the surface that the chisel cut roughly

Stone tables by LDM Italia differ from other modern elements for essential and simple shapes, for elegant and refined lines.
Have a look for example at Samurai glass and stone table, with an hand-made stone sculpture as base, that supports a rectangular glass table. The stone sculpture made of White Vicenza stone reminds in shape paper-folding and the typical Japanes art.
Alex Wood table is characterized by a Vicenza stone base, while the top is in wood, available in several essence, like walnut, cherry-wood or wengè. This design table stands out for the original matching of stone with wood.

For those who love round tops to place in the middle of a living room, I suggest Arcipelago round stone table. Its main feature is the light, that passes through the engraved wave.

And why not daring with a stone bookcase? The right choice is QB stackable stone bookcase, composed by stone modules to combine in endless compositions according to your needs.