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July 27, 2014

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Looking for deeper interior meanings

WHO is he?

Gennaro Postiglione is an associate professor of interior architecture at Politecnico di Milano-Italy. His research focuses mainly on domestic interiors, museography and preserving and diffusing collective memory and cultural identity. From 2008, he has also promoted Interior Forum World, an academic network and web platform for research and practice in the field of interior architecture and interior design. IFW convenes a biennial international symposium on interiors in collaboration with education institutions in Europe and overseas.

Tell us about some of your works.

A project under my supervision showcases the residences of some of the most significant 20th century European architects. It not only aims to make visible an aspect of our culture that has hitherto been neglected by scholars, but also, ambitiously, to help assure the preservation of this shared international heritage. The manifold network of connections linking the lives of these architects enriches their homes and affords concrete proof of the impossibility of confining a cultural praxis — such as interior architecture — within fixed geographic boundaries. A further concern of this was to liberate architecture from its functional dimension and to highlight its quality as a hybrid cultural practice.

The project is financed by the EU Cultural Commission and developed at Politecnico di Milano (Italy).

Are you currently involved in any research project?

I am actually working on contemporary theories, methods and the design of museum buildings and exhibition design between tradition and innovation. Until now, museography — a branch on interiors in the Italian tradition — was a discipline mainly concerning preservation and valorization of cultural heritage, from the small object to vast territorial area.

From now on, new museology will approach the same field with a completely different attitude — the concrete task of any program concerning cultural heritage and built environment has to be centred on sustainable action strategies of re-appropriation by people themselves.

Where are you most creative?

In a stereotypical 19th century European place: cafes, where I can work while listening to people talk, smell food and drinks, and look at passersby... It is not a causality that the most advanced trend in office design is work mixed with leisure.

Describe your design style.

My design style is an investigation of the context, where people, objects and environment are active elements of design.

What will be the next big design trend?

I am sure that the crucial role of social networking in our everyday life together with the strong empowerment of people meant as individuals will bring back many of the socio-cultural positions developed during the 1970s.




 

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