CASA MONDO

Bêka & Lemoine | Exploring

Is it possible to maintain a desire for exploration, the joy of discovery, the natural inclination to travel now that the world has become less accessible? Within our homes, travel takes on the role of a broad metaphor that transfers the primary need for discovery from the external landscape to the domestic environment.

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Video-artists, producers and publishers, Bêka and Lemoine focus their research on experimenting new narrative and cinematographic forms in relation to contemporary architecture and urban environment. Presented by The New-York Times as the « cult figures in European architecture », Bêka & Lemoine’s complete work has been acquired in 2016 by the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) for its permanent collection.

photo © Héloïse Lalanne

Humberto Campana | Open Windows

Windows have always been architecture’s link between interior and exterior. Historically, its dialogue with the world has always depended on their shape, on their predominance, but also their sense of protection, through to extreme cases such as the glasshouses. In Casa Mondo, open windows may be the only contact with the outside world but also a great opportunity for investigating other windows: those of our inner world.

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Co-founded in 1984 by brothers Fernando and Humberto Campana, Estudio Campana has achieved international recognition for its furniture design, such as Favela and Vermelha chair. In 2019, they celebrated 35 years acknowledged as pioneers of disruptive design. Their creative process raises everyday materials to nobility, bringing Brazilian characteristics – the colors, the mixtures, the creative chaos, the triumph of simple solutions – in an artistic and poetic way.

foto © Fernando Laszlo

Didier Fiúza Faustino | Care

Care for both body and mind is one of the central activities of our domestic life. How has our attention to our bodies and our mental health changed as a consequence of the restrictions on our outside life, with the reduction of social contacts?

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Didier Fiúza Faustino is an architect and artist working on subversion and the relationship between body and space. He started his own practice at the crossroad of art and architecture just after graduating in architecture in 1995. He has been developing since then a multi-faceted approach, ranging from installation to experimentation, from visual art to the creation of multi-sensorial spaces and buildings. His projects are characterized by their critical perspectives, their freedom of codes and their ability to offer new experiences to the individual and collective body. He is represented by Galerie Michel Rein Paris / Brussels and Galeria Filomena Soares in Lisbon.

photo © Valérie Le Guern

Sou Fujimoto | Threshold

In architecture, the passage from inside to outside has been a theme tackled and resolved over time. Entrances, facades, vestibules, canopies and passages are design features of great interest as they entail the union of space and movement. This limit has always been the threshold between a safe place – the home – and a space in which we should move with circumspection – the world. Today, this ancestral connotation has been enriched with new meanings.

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photo © David Vintine

Konstantin Grcic | Learning

The function of learning is frequently relegated to the closed internal space, to the enclosure of a study or a private corner. Today, online connectivity brings us a continuous flow of indirect information, visual rather than physical contact and knowledge by way of electronic devices. How does this affect the definition of our knowledge?

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Konstantin Grcic (*1965) was trained as a cabinet maker at The John Makepeace School for Craftsmen in Wood before studying Design at the Royal College of Art in London. Since setting up his own practice in Munich in 1991 he has developed furniture, products and lighting for leading design companies. Today, Konstantin Grcic Design is based in Berlin and is active in several fields ranging from industrial design projects, exhibition design and collaborations in architecture and fashion. Grcic defines function in human terms, combining formal strictness with considerable mental acuity and humour. His work is characterised by careful research into the history of art, design and architecture and his passion for technology and materials.

foto © Gerhardt Kellermann

Martí Guixé | Food

The consumption of food has a historically defined and identified space within the distribution of domestic spaces: feeding ourselves is one of the essential functions. In Casa Mondo, the consumption, conservation and preparation of food take on an expanded and diffused dimension that frequently breaches the confines of the domestic space. Food is a true bridge to the world, even though it is ever more frequently a virtual connection.

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Formed in Barcelona and in Milan as an interior and industrial designer. In 1994, living in Berlin, he formulated a new way to understand the culture of products. Guixé started to exhibit his work in 1997, work that characterizes on the search for new product systems, the introduction of design in food ambits and presentation through performance. His non-conventional gaze provides brilliant and simple ideas of a curious seriousness. He is based in Barcelona and Berlin and works as a Designer for worldwide companies.

photo © Inga Knölke

Patricia Urquiola | Home working

The home has not traditionally been a place of work, if not for particular professional categories. And yet the history of female domestic labour has always seen the home as a “place of work”. Casa Mondo is being equipped for remote working while continuing to be the setting for domestic labour, affecting social and personal relationships inside and out.

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Patricia Urquiola studied architecture and design at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and the Politecnico di Milano, graduating with Achille Castiglioni. She worked with Vico Magistretti and later as head of design at Lissoni Associati. She opened her own studio in Milano in 2001. She designed for some of the most important Italian and international companies and her work is displayed in various museums and collections across the world. Patricia Urquiola serves as a visiting lecturer at various universities across the world, is on the Advisory Board for the Politecnico di Milano and part of the Scientific Committee for the Fondazione Museo Del Design. She was the Ambassador of the Milan Expo in 2015, the same year she was appointed as Art Director for Cassina.

photo © Marco Craig