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Histograms in limited edition
23-04-2009

Trienniale Design Museum: spectacular Fabio Novembre installation

NgispeN offers Novembre’s Histograms in limited edition

From 21 April to 17 May, La Triennale di Milano Design Museum is presenting a spectacular installation by Fabio Novembre entitled Il Fiore di Novembre/Novembre’s Flower. The exhibition was designed by Fabio Novembre himself, one of today’s leading pioneering designers. On account of its design and conceptual depth, this promises to be an inspiring experience. NgispeN, the new Gispen label, is offering a special limited edition of Fabio Novembre’s Histograms (desk and armchair) in a series of 50 numbered and signed pieces, in any colour of choice.

Novembre’s Histograms series was one of the first to be included in the new NgispeN design collection, which was officially launched last year. Headed by creative director Richard Hutten, NgispeN is a complex and unique ‘design for at home’ collection, which Gispen is introducing on the market. Under the slogan ‘playing with tradition’, Gispen reprises its role as an innovative producer of contemporary furniture. In Richard Hutten’s vision, NgispeN stands for innovative, functional and interesting products that matter.

An important part of NgispeN is the Richard Hutten Collection. The design label achieves further prominence with products by designers like Gerrit Rietveld, W.H. Gispen, Bertjan Pot and Fabio Novembre. Designs by Michael Young and James Irvine are expected shortly. The collection is steadily growing and is available in leading design stores, museum shops and online.

Fabio Novembre (Naples, 1966) is described as one of the most influential designers since Philippe Starck. Novembre studied architecture, then wanted to be a film maker, but is known for his hugely baroque and sensual designs for shops, clubs and hotels. In subsequent designs, Novembre combines a great sense of aesthetic perfection, fun, baroque drama and sensual expression. About Il Fiore di Novembre, he says: ‘Everything can be done starting from a flower (...) the balance between the potential of a seed and the achievement of a flower, is the seducing song of love calls, the moment to be seized of aesthetic perfection.’

An opportunity to offer the Histograms series by Fabio Novembre in a limited edition was presented by the Il Fiore di Novembre exhibition designed by the Italian architect and designer for the Triennale Design Museum. In the massive installation, the visitor literally steps into the associative creative world of Novembre. Not only does it show important designs, it also reveals the creative process, Novembre’s obsessions and the sources or ideas that inspired him. The various rooms through which the visitor passes are expressly dark; black dominates. All the designs are exhibited in pure white. So too, for the first time, the Histograms series, which thus becomes more unworldly and magical. This was why NgispeN decided to make a limited edition of the Histograms series, in the colour chosen by the customer.

Talking about the design, Fabio Novembre says: ‘In statistics, a histogram is a graphic display of a frequency distribution; I have tried to convert that into an abstract work of art of comfort, by creating diagrams under human frequencies. In design history, Superstudio studied histograms in 1971, under the name “Istogrammi di architettura”. The connection with the spirit of the time was very inspiring for me. The word histogram is derived from the Greek: histos, “anything set upright” (like the masts of a ship, the beam of a loom, or the vertical bars of a histogram), and gramma, “drawing, report, writing”. I have used histograms as a tool for designing an alternative domestic landscape".

The limited edition of the Histograms series (desk and armchair) is made in an exquisitely aesthetic frame of multiplex wood, partly covered with perspex. The production process is pure craftsmanship, demands exceptional precision and is therefore extremely labour intensive. Every object may be considered a unique work of art and is produced at the request of the new owner in any colour of choice. The series consists of 50 pieces, numbered and signed by the designer and comes with a ‘certificate of authenticity’.

Il Fiore di Novembre/Novembre’s Flowers
Triennale di Milano, 21 April to 17 May 2009
Ciale Alemagna 6, Milan
www.triennaledesignmuseum.it