Milano Design Week 2021: Elena Salmistraro designs the “Hotel Chimera” capsule collection for CEDIT
CEDIT presents a capsule collection with a strong expressive and symbolic charge, inspired by Greek mythology, that opens its horizons to incorporating value – to support a charitable cause.
The Spazio CEDIT is transformed into a crucible for images
Illusion, imagination, dream, utopia: this is the mix of ingredients in the installation investigating the potentials of the Chimera collection, created to mark Milano Design City at the Spazio CEDIT in the city’s Brera district.
Hotel Chimera is space where we can escape from and evade reality, achieved by Combining a heterogeneous mixture of elements.
“It’s not easy to convey the spirit of such a broad collection with a single installation. Hence the idea for Hotel Chimera, a sort of non-place, a location free of all ties and bonds to reality, and above all that brings a variety of components together to create a crucible for images, where the artificial reigns supreme,” the collection’s designer Elena Salmistraro explains.
Conceived as a journey through time, the installation traverses the sequence of 20C design movements with the aid of the collection’s graphic themes. It starts from the Hall, clad with “Empatia” slabs, which construct an interior based on Art Deco images, with an alternation of black and white forming modules and geometric shapes. On the opposite side is the lounge area, representing the Modernist Movement through “Ritmo” slabs, freely inspired by the work of leading Bauhaus figures Gunta Stölzl and Anni Albers.
These two interiors are separated by a sinuous curve which both subdivides and compacts the entire installation. On a second level, we find two panels covered with “Radici” and “Colore” slabs. The former reference the animalier trends of the Radical period, and provide the perfect backdrop for a possible bedroom, while the latter, which express the hyper-decorative contemporary style, could be the perfect wall covering for a restaurant area.
“This dream-hotel also has a facade, in the form an illustration embracing all the collection’s graphics, signs, colours and inspirations,” Elena concludes.
Elena Salmistraro once again confirms her talent as an artist and designer with incomparable communicative power. Large ceramic slabs are the perfect medium for her inspiration since they offer both visual and tactile potentials, enabled by innovative technologies.
The Hotel Chimera installation by Elena Salmistraro can be viewed every day from 28 September, from 10:00 to 19:00 hrs.
Watch the interview:
