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Catherine Colonna, French Ambassador in Italy, near the Buffet Snow (designer Erwan Péron) produced by Roche Bobois, at Embassy in Palazzo Farnese, Rome.
For a period of three months, from 8th June until 20th September, Palazzo Farnese’s great galleries, wonderful Renaissance’s symbols and sixteenth century masterpieces of architecture, will be furnished with the creations of French designers, shaped both in France and Italy.
This summer, design and history will come together under the Palazzo Farnese’s towering eight-meter ceilings in an initiative prompted by the French Ambassador to Italy, Catherine Colonna. Artistic advisors Isabelle Valembras and Pierre Léonforte have instinctively focused on bold shapes, strong colors, noble materials that constitute, once assembled, a wide representation of French contemporary creation. Based on a decorative arts’ tradition, they have been mutated, transformed, and sublimated by the skills of thirty globally esteemed designers, architects, decorators and interior designers. The event will take place with the support of the Institut Francais in Italy. Arranged throughout the three galleries on the first floor of the Palazzo Farnese, Design@ Farnese will gather fifty pieces created by the best of French design across all generations, from the most experienced and famous artists to emerging young talents. The latter, the gallery-editors category, symbolizes a new typically French trend, much noticed during international fairs and salons, and much praised both by collectors and museums. Design@ Farnese will also feature smaller independent growing editors, such as interior designers and creators who chose self-editing, or such as industrial manufacturers able to recognize young promising talents. Within the Embassy’s galleries will therefore be gathered: Bosc, DCW. éditions, Cristofle, En attendant les Barbares, Frag, Galerie BSL/Béatrice Saint-Laurent, Hermès, Oscarmaschera, Petite Friture, Poltrona Frau, Pouenat, Promemoria/Romeo Sozzi, Roche-Bobois. Another aspect revealed by Design@Farnese is design’s geography: no longer focused in Paris only, but distributed also through Brittany, the Lands, South of France and Auvergne, proving that French production and creation are no longer centralized. Added to these features are the round trips between France and Italy, since most of the French creators are also working for Italian editors, whether they’re from Piedmont, Lombardi, Friuli, Venetia, Marche, or Puglia. Design@Farnese will be made up of massive wood, exotic essences, leather, glass, velvet, iron, silver, ceramic, plexiglass, silk, and linen Fibers. “Just a few months after the Design Week and during Milan’s Trienniale, Design@Farnese is a French wink to Italy, one of the Design’s homelands,” specifies Catherine Colonna. “I wanted to show a new side of the French creativity, which is sustained by a permanent collaboration with Italy,” adds the ambassador. “According to a logic which now motivates our entire diplomacy of influence in Italy, Design@ Farnese connects both cultural and artistic outreaches and the valorization of an employment and export generator sector. I believe that in order to fulfill the wishes of French diplomacy to show a renewed and attractive image of our country, we must also keep using Palazzo Farnese, an exceptional historical place, a lively place, that can be the perfect showcase for contemporary French excellences and inventiveness”. For more information contact the:
