Antonella Villanova is pleased to present Primum Non Nocere, the new collection of lamps and furniture, designed for the gallery by the American designer and architect Johanna Grawunder.

This collection was produced using classic materials, such as bronze, steel, aluminum, which guarantee their longevity. Being assembled by traditionally skilled and technically expert artisans, these pieces are transformed into furniture of a very high quality, to show in the best way possible refined details and meet all the aesthetic requirements of the project.

Luxury signifying “good living” is a vice Johanna Grawunder does not want to give up.

She has always aimed to create objects which can make a better living quality for their owners.

Her works are designed also to produce perspective changes, different points of view and new chromatic and luminous vibrations. Grawunder’s pieces has been conceived to inscribe new signs inside the architecture of the sites in our daily life (houses, offices) or inside those places we have elected as temporary oasis (bars, restaurants, hotels, green spaces).

Each piece of this collection is immediately recognized for its methodology, as a work signed by Grawunder, characterized by the clear denial of the obsolete concept of self-reference for the design object, and, on the other hand, the tendency to seek dialog with the space around.

While the lamps search for portions of wall on which to project the luminous profile of their shape, the tables are assembled with volumes which are oriented and finished in order to create infinite possibilities of installation in the ambience, and with renovated perspective visions.

Grawunder’s concept of working derives from a precise ethic and a professional attitude: she constantly observes reality through a double perspective that allows her to measure, at the same time, the evolution of her research and the reactions of the society; that society to which her work is addressed and is also her inspiration, with its present and future exigencies.

During the most delicate phase of the creation, both the personal and collective aspects come together, and the designed project becomes an object with a precise identity, given by the material with which it is going to be made.

Once the designers have metabolized the urgency to use ecological, recyclable, not-polluting materials and the necessity of modifying – from an “ethicologic” point of view- behaviours related to consumerism, their decision about the use of materials in their projects, is not only an aesthetic or functional choice, but it becomes a cultural responsibility.

The post-modern misunderstanding has transformed the idea of progress into the bulimic consumerism culture, and on that concept has built an ephemeral vision of an optimistic life: however, today there is a new attitude that reaffirms the qualitative value of things and style of life, that is against the obsession of accumulation which causes dangerous scraps.

Grawunder belongs to that generation of designers who work to support such ecologic attitudes. She believes in not damaging and being respectful towards what is necessary to produce, aiming to improve the quality of our life.

First: don’t cause damages; second: put a limit to the overproduction of transitory design; third: become conscious and far-sighted consumers who prefer acquiring very special waste-free objects.

Her latest collection has got factors of “nobility”, longevity and classicism, which contribute to produce a real value to hand down from father to son. A luxury product, related to historical traditions, something to be collected and preserved, and day by day it will become ever more precious

This time Grawunder has chosen to give essential forms, rigorous lines and sober colours to her pieces of furniture, abandoning the previous exaggerated fluorescent palette, and she seems to underline the necessity to formulate immortal, iconic projects.

This is a precious collection in many ways, because it wants to support the sane, solid, eternal economy of culture, which favours the use of primary materials – possibly soon to be no more extractible – and protects the workmanship of excellent artisans besides saving the genuine design.

Emanuela Nobile Mino

 “I have always designed thinking that the object one is going to project is a sort of instrument for our life. An instrument that makes people who use it or people who watch it to understand they are living. It is the opposite of the consumerism concept, that wants us to forget we are living and dying, because consuming is important; because life consists in consuming, using, watching, buying…To me this kind of definition of live, is not interesting. I think that all the things we design, architectures, objects, and so on, must help people to be aware they are living. Therefore, in anything I make, I try to design something that can become an instrument for living (…)”.

(Abstract taken from an interview of Marie-Laure Jousset  to Ettore Sottsass, appeared in the catalogue of the exhibition “Il design Cartier visto da Ettore Sottsass” Milano, Palazzo Reale, October 2002/January 2003).