ABET LAMINATI is pleased to present the “Kasa Digitalia” project to the public at the 2008 International Furniture Fair in Milan (Salone del Mobile – Fuori Salone) . The project was created in collaboration with De Rosso and based on the designs of Karim Rashid. A collection of decorative items in bright and provocative colours that will give shape and meaning to the living spaces of the Kasa. An exceptional event, which represents a new chapter in the enthusiastic adventure of ABET in the area of Italian and international design.
On 16 April 2008, the “Kasa Digitalia” event/project will be opened to the public and to the press at the Triennale di Milano Design Museum. The project is organised by ABET LAMINATI SpA with the special collaboration of De Rosso, a partner specialising in furniture production. A new collection of bright and provocative colours and decorative items will give shape to KASA DIGITALIA: a unique and provocative technological domestic ambience entirely covered with ABET laminates printed using digital technology and fitted out in collaboration with De Rosso. Karim will meet the public and national and foreign press on 17 April at 18.00 at our stand on the ground floor (Galleria dell’Architettura) of the Triennale di Milano Design Museum.

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Zeroing colours and decor, returning to the essence of the material.
This is the idea by Paola Navone for telling the De Rosso story, the company of Italy’s Veneto region which is the creator of many of the Abet Laminati furnishings: ranging from the creations by Ettore Sottsass to the collections by Memphis and Alchimia; the sculpture-furniture following the projects by internationally famous architects carried out in Digital Print; and the creations in digital laminate created in 2003 by twenty-five young international architects which were presented at the Milan Triennial in the exhibition supervised by Paola Navone.
“Bianco 411″ – the title of the installation – is Abet white.
And this is what represents the essence of the project: a totally white and empty space. On the sides there are projecting consoles like a large extrusion to sit on in order to relish a moment of calm and formal cleanliness.
When every thing has been done, when the most beautiful ‘pages’ of decoration’s story and history have already been written, when we suffer or endure what is “too much” – nothing else is left than to start from the beginning: from white, from silence and from light so as to offer the traveller of design a moment of peace. A traveller bewildered and confused by those so many images of the Milanese week.
The only things present are a thousand Indian spoons, already used and therefore second-hand, collected by Paola Navone during her explorations of the world in search for a design without a name. They hang from the ceiling in their new silver-plating. On the white page of the space they write a message that it’s worth stopping to think about.
They talk about an anonymous design, often more beautiful and more meaningful than the one with a ‘name’ (and years before Bruno Munari had proposed awarding the Compasso d’Oro to the “Unknown Designer”). They talk about selection as the project gesture. It’s of no importance to create something new when there is already so much: sometimes just choosing is enough, remembering to look in places we’ve forgotten, places where it’s possible to find excellence. Places where it’s possible to find magic. (more…)