Milan, Italy
Snøhetta presents a compelling and intriguing series of two-dimensional imaginary landscapes for bathroom ceramics manufacturer Laufen at the Furosalone 2022 that conflate industrially produced objects designed by Stefano Giovannoni with architecture and the forms and contours of the natural world and inspired by the elegant forms and graceful movements of swans.
These impressive architectural spaces and landscapes create scenes to appreciate the smooth sculptural qualities of Laufen ceramics from an other-worldly perspective.
Since its inception, the Norwegian architecture studio stands for a transdisciplinary approach that fuses architecture with art and other design disciplines such as landscape design or digital design.
Snøhetta developed five imaginative compositions that depict the collection’s iconic objects in fantastical settings among imaginative architecture and majestic landscapes.
The recurring theme of the swan references the graceful design language of the collection, but also challenges the viewer’s perception of beauty, design and art.
With views that play with a sense of movement, time, and scale, the perspectives capture the experience of diving into and out of the water while zooming in and around the landscape, providing natural compliments to the supple and curving geometries of Laufen ceramics.
By engaging with water, movement, and geometry, they allow us to reconsider how our bodies relate to space and reimagine how beauty, elegance, and wonder can be found in the everyday.
A family of Swans approaches a mysterious house perched on a rocky fjord.
The all-white house is marked by a diagonal cleave that appears, to the swans, like their own tucked-in wings.
As the swans approach the floating Laufen fixtures, they wonder if the creatures inhabiting these mysterious surroundings offer more than meets the eye.
Below the surface of the water sits a world equally as surreal as the one above.
As the swans peer into these icy depths, they encounter a series of new forms nestled in the seabed, not streamlined and avian creatures like those above but instead, softly rounded and weighty objects that appear to be smoothed by time and by the currents of the sea.
Another view takes us close in.
Where once one could see landscape, he finds himself immersed in a ruffle of plumage, peering into the vanes of the swans’ feathers.
Here, arrayed barbs offer a micro-scale approximation of Laufen’s backlit mirror design.
Zooming in closer, the spectaror now finds itself inside the belly of the swan, where swept folds and curving arches create an interior landscape that becomes home to a floating bathtub.
From inside the swan, one can appreciate the sinuous beauty of the ceramics and of the bird alike.
Perched high above the rocky fjord, the viewer’s perspective over the landscape shifts to that of the occupant residing within the house itself.
Where once he could see a flock of swans in an alien landscape communing with strange creatures, he now sees the swans replaced by fixtures floating in the fjord.
Whether high or low, above or below, interior and exterior come to resemble one another.
Project: ILBAGNOALESSI, Laufen x Snøhetta
Architects: Snøhetta
Designer: Stefano Giovannoni
Client: Laufen
