Other initiatives have developed qualified and positive confrontations between designers and craftsmen, realized for Progetti e territori (Projects and Territories) in Verona in collaboration with Ugo La Pietra. The “forges” of “Abitare il Tempo” (Living the Time) in Verona and “Abitare con Arte” (Living with Art) in Milan have meant to revitalize the Artistic Craftsmanship, drawing together architects-designers and makers-heirs of traditional trades. Architects Gabetti and Isola, Arrò, Drocco, Deferrari, Jacomussi, Germak and Laurini, Isnardi, Luzi, Mamino designed for the producing firms of the Saluzzo area “Furniture among Friends”, showing at the International Days of the Interior Decoration of Verona personalized doors, tables, frames, containers, beds and trolleys. Demonstrating that the province, denigrated as place of conservative manners, can be bearer of new languages, the exhibition set up in 1994 for “Abitare il Tempo” launched the challenge of wooden, iron and glass “Work Articles” produced by the Saluzzo’s firms based on the project of some students from the town Art Institute and of designers coming from cultural areas both Italian and foreign. The exhibition, organized by Toni Cordero and Elena Arrò, emphasizes the artisan projectuality and creativity not connected with the items’ utilization value. “Conessenza” of Antonio Arrò, realized by Amleto Bertoni, is a timeless ladder “set free” from a walnut trunk; the experimentation besides routine, and the work repetitiveness, has contributed to destabilize the operators’ roles producing alchemies, nucleuses of ideas, application fields so far unexplored. If the narcissism of some projects has suffocated craftsmanship with the production of out of the market items, the respectability of a craftsmanship hostile to novelties has been stirred, setting free a real need of the object’s projectuality. Witnesses of an ancient artisan diffidence to changes – furniture made from precious essences, volutes and daring combinations of materials – crowd the archives of many designers’ offices and seem to invoke the silence of the project “action” in favour of a “not-action” with the purpose of letting the recollection appear, anyway the true bet on the craftsmanship’s future passes through the creativity, the steady
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revising of the “genius loci” through a transmission system of the manual knowledge. Schools and training courses often organize the programs in view of lines of work generically connected with design or business management, closer to the young people’s ambitions, thus eluding craftsmanship’s true problem, which has to do with the acquirement of the creation instruments through the knowledge of the techniques and of the materials, launching towards the future a profession which might be reference of school and workshop.
“Abitare il Tempo” a Verona, “Progetti e Territori” mostre coordinate da Ugo La Pietra: Mahel-Mamino, “Tavolo con tante gambe”, realizzato da Bressano per la mostra “Piemonte”, curata da R. Gabetti e A. Oreglia d’Isola, 1992. “Living the Time” in Verona, “Projects and Territories” exhibitions coordinated by Ugo La Pietra: Mahel-Mamino, “Table with many legs” realized by Bressano for the exhibition “Piemonte” organized by R. Gabetti and A. Oreglia d’Isola, 1992.