Cristina Celestino combines furnishings with tennis in Clay Court docket Membership
Italian architect and designer Cristina Celestino has briefly refitted a historic Milan tennis membership with furnishings that references nets, courts and rackets.
For Milan design week, Celestino has taken over the headquarters of the Tennis Membership Milano Bonacossa, a constructing designed by famend Milanese architect Giovanni Muzio and constructed in 1930.
Her set up, Clay Court docket Membership, sees the constructing up to date with furnishings and fittings that characteristic playful references to tennis.
These embrace chairs with interwoven particulars akin to conventional tennis rackets, a bench that takes cues from courtside seating, and carpet that matches the color of a clay courtroom.
The exhibition marks the fourth time that Milan-based Celestino has staged an exhibition in an “iconic but hidden” location within the metropolis. As with these earlier than, the set up would not forestall the area from functioning as regular.
“I at all times search for important however lesser-known locations in Milan, as a option to unveil town to foreigners,” the designer informed Dezeen.
“My curiosity is to each set up a relationship with the present structure and discover the operate of those that use the area.”
The works on present are a mixture of new designs, customized items and current merchandise.
Probably the most eye-catching piece is the Parasol bench, created underneath Celestino’s personal label, Attico Design, in collaboration with native studio Skillmax.
This curved bench includes a wood seat and padded backrest, and is topped by a textile sunshade that Celestino describes as “an outsized hat”.
Like lots of the works on show, the design combines linear and curved geometries. Based on the designer, that is based mostly on Muzio’s curiosity in combining traces with semi-circles in his structure.
Related geometries characteristic on the materials, provided by Italian model Dedar. Totally different textiles had been chosen for indoor and out of doors, riffing on the architectural particulars of the constructing.
“We chosen sturdy materials with punctual patterns, recalling how the tennis membership constructing is embellished with geometric motives made up of exact graphic indicators,” Celestino mentioned.
The brand new Raquette couch and armchair – a collaboration with Italian model Billiani – combines woven wood slats with clear white upholstery, whereas the Ace desk from Attico Design includes a metallic grid that resembles a internet.
Different key items embrace a reinterpretation of a Nineteen Sixties flooring lamp and a modular seating system that frames massive tropical vegetation.
Underfoot, the clay-coloured carpet options exact cutaways that spotlight particulars within the current flooring.
“The brand new carpet flooring turns into a citation of the crimson clay courtroom, emphasising Muzio’s wealthy unique marble decorations,” mentioned Celestino.
The set up extends to a pop-up restaurant, We Are Ona, situated in a round room in one of many constructing’s two wings.
This area has extra of a backyard really feel, with inexperienced carpet, hanging flower preparations, customized curved tables and inexperienced variations of Celestino’s Frisée eating chair for Billiani.
It’s the solely room the place the furnishings composition is symmetrical. The designer’s intention was to respect “Muzio’s lengthy yearn for asymmetry” as a lot as attainable.
“Furnishings components are organized in keeping with an out-of-scale logic, creating a brand new perspective order that seeks to generate new identities and focus,” she mentioned.
Clay Court docket Membership is on present at Viale Romagna 58 in Milan till 23 April 2023. See our Milan design week 2023 information on Dezeen Occasions Information for details about the numerous different exhibitions, installations and talks going down all through the week.
