Bocci's New Milan Base Now Open
Bocci opens a permanent Italian base in the heart of Milan, celebrating the milestone with a range of new product designs
Milan, 17 April 2023 - Canadian lighting and design studio Bocci’s new permanent base in the heart of Milan is now open, signifying an important milestone in the developing relationship between the brand and the city. The apartment is situated in an early twentieth-century building in Zona Vincenzo Monti, and joins Bocci’s exhibition space and studio in Berlin (set to open in September 2023), as a European hub for the brand’s transnational community of people, ideas, and objects.
To mark this occasion, Bocci presents a collection of new product designs and bespoke lighting installations within the intimate residential setting. Bocci’s newest design, 118, makes its debut at the apartment. The glass sphere offers an ethereal appearance, each one exhibiting traces of the steel cages used in their formation. The new 44t table light also finds a home in Bocci Milan. Featuring subtle feet on the underside of the pendant, 44t is transformed from a sculptural design into a functional table light.
Initially conceived in 2022, Bocci has launched 89 this April. Available in nine variations - four hooks and five hangers - each piece is created by pouring molten metal into standardised moulds, then cast in sand. 89 then emerges from the sand as a unique object, with unrepeatable contours and blemishes.
The 1.8 shelf is the latest design to join the 1.0 series - the first design of Bocci’s co-founder, Omer Arbel. Originally a one-off commission to double a book collector’s storage in a small apartment, the 1.0 family has now evolved into a geometric design of overlapping shelving layers. 1.8 presents a rotating display of designs and objects in Bocci Milan.
A collection of Bocci’s 16 lights up the garden with its warm and ambient glow. Formed by pouring three separate pools of molten glass of varying opacity and colour over a horizontal pane - each layer responds to the indeterminate shape of the previous pour to create a layered whole. Whilst the initial 16 design features a steel armature system that connects the glass pieces to a series of branches and stems, Bocci Milan sees a new ground version making its debut during Milan Design Week.
Meanwhile, the 74 hangs in the Bocci Milan kitchen. Presenting a contemporary alternative to conventional track lighting, 74 maintains Bocci’s signature approach through its sculptural cables. Each spotlight is housed inside an articulated mirrored sphere affixed with a magnet to allow maximum control over the emitted light. Additionally, as an ode to Bocci’s new home, the 28t table light is now available in a new colourway, Milanese Green.
Bocci also presents a rotating collection of objects at the apartment; the first of which showcases a range of designs and objects that demonstrate the breadth of relationships Bocci has built with its community of staff, clients, designers, brands, and supporters over the years.
Calico Wallpaper dresses the walls in three designs: Brasscloth in a custom dark green colourway; Inverted Spaces in a custom greyscale colourway; and Wanderlust. As with all Calico Wallpaper collections, these new works were born from original artwork.
German interior brand e15 presents its Hiroki table in a custom base colour, alongside its angular Backenzahn stool, both designed by Philipp Mainzer; meanwhile its Pardis bed, upholstered in fabric by Dedar, finds a home in the bedroom, paired with bespoke pillows in fabrics by Dedar and Kvadrat.
Henrybuilt designed a custom kitchen space in Bocci Milan. The concept was conceived as a distillation, almost an abstraction of a conventional kitchen, positioned just off the garden entry to the apartment, with a furniture-like island positioned in the middle of the small, vertical space. Henrybuilt's Opencase System - which allows for a flexible arrangement of storage and tools on the wall - plays off the original detailing of the room to visually and functionally connect two additional storage and work areas that have been recessed into existing closet spaces, allowing the room to retain its original form.
Vancouver-based potter Janaki Larsen offers a collection of 16 hand-thrown and hand-glazed plates in her characteristic pared-back aesthetic. Bocci Milan also welcomes the Bembo Credenza by Orior Furniture, wrapped in Orior leather with hand stitched detailing.
Additional collaborations and items will be shared by Christian Woo, ClassiCon, Coco-Mat, De La Espada, Knoll International, New Tendency, and Tino Seubert, amongst others.
In tandem, Bocci has unveiled an exciting new brand identity, re-envisioned by Studio Frith. Guided by an impression of Bocci as a company driven by experimentation and ‘a free flowing exchange of ideas and materials’, Frith proposed to turn the inside outside, unveiling the process behind the Bocci designs. A striking new logo was shaped to reference the abstract, spherical forms produced by Bocci; alongside energetic photography by Fahim Kassam, website built by Civilisation, and a typeface designed by Studio Frith and produced by Dalton Maag.
NOTE TO EDITORS
For media enquiries please contact Camron:
bocci@camronglobal.com
Bocci Milan
Via Lorenzo Mascheroni, 2
20123, Milan
* Access Bocci Milan on via Giuseppe Rovani
Monday 17 April - Saturday 22 April, 10:00 - 18:00
Interior Design: Bocci
Architectural Consultant and Project Manager: Paolo Cossu Architects
Landscape Design: Dentice/Cadei Landscape
Collaborators: Ames Living; Calico Wallpaper; Christian Woo; ClassiCon; CocoMat; De La Espada; e15; Janaki Larsen; Henrybuilt; Knoll International; New Tendency; Orior Furniture; Tino Seubert
ABOUT BOCCI
Bocci is a design studio and manufacturer based in Vancouver, Canada.
Experimentation, collaboration, and hands-on making fuel every object Bocci produces. The team - glassblowers, metalworkers, chemists, sculptors, designers, architects, and engineers - exchange skills and knowledge to extend the possibilities of form.
Bocci’s ongoing pursuit is to capture materials mid-transformation - in the act of cooling, exploding, and changing form. The metamorphosis is the piece, with the resulting artefacts emerging secondary to these chemical reactions. Form emerges from what Bocci refers to as “constrained chance”: they may set the frameworks, but the materials act out of their own will. Each collector of a Bocci object is invited to join this process.
Flexibility and adaptation define Bocci’s designs, it can take a day or a decade for a particular design experiment to become clear. This extended process is captured in Bocci’s naming system: every product is assigned a number; this is the order in which each experiment began, but did not necessarily finish. The first commercially available light fixture, 14, was followed by 21, then 22, 28, 57, and 73. The first design, 1, will only be introduced in 2024, after 113. The products Bocci chooses to manufacture are punctuation marks in Bocci’s ongoing study of cause and effect.