Dekton, at Milano Design Week 2015

7 abril, 2015

The ultracompact Dekton surface has been the material of two exhibitions at Milano Design Week 2015.

Cosentino Group astonished visitors of Milano Design Week with an extraordinary installation: Deep Words Light, born from the collaboration between Cosentino and Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel and Partners.

The project, completely designed with the ultracompact surface Dekton by Cosentino, was shown as part of the event Interni, Energy for Creativity 2015, and was taking place in the courtyard of the University of Milan from April 13th to May 24th.

Deep Words Light, inspired by the Teatro Olimpico of Palladio, created an outdoor theater in the largest courtyard of the University of Milan, with four Dekton steles that formed the backdrop for an ideal stage in the 17th-century portico.

The material used to make these “wings”, the ultracompact surface Dekton, is a mixture of raw materials that is used to manufacture glass, porcelain materials and quartz surfaces. The Dekton surface can recreate any type of material with a high level of quality. It is manufactured in large format (320 cm x 144 cm) and thin thicknesses (0.8 cm, 1.2 cm and 2 cm).

Each stele was composed of 15 slabs measuring 142 x 320 cm to form an enormous panel with a triangular base 2.84m long, for a final height of 9.60 m. Supported by a ballasted metal structure, they were balanced at the base by a large platform, 17.50 x 7.35 m, that symbolically became the stage of the theater itself, while distributing the weight and stabilizing the steles thanks to a concealed inner structure.

Each of the slabs of the long sides of the structure was customized with a text engraved with an innovative milling technology developed by the Cosentino R&D department. The personalization engraved on the huge steles is further emphasized by the oblique lighting from the base, thanks to the LED lighting built into the platform. Finally, the stage – the 17th-century portico – took on a theatrical red hue through the use of specific lights, in the evening, that created an ethereal backdrop, almost the opposite of the great materic impact of the “sculptures” in Dekton.

Deep Words Light is a way to narrate the city of Milano, its history, its cultural, social and economic world, not in a habitual way, during the year of the Expo in Milan, on the global stage. There’s a need to abandon sophisticated communicative languages aimed at sector professionals, and reach out to make the extraordinary world of international creativity and a production system on a European scale accessible to a different, non-habitual audience, which we attempt to persuade thanks to the miraculous continuity our city is able to generate between its history and the most extreme frontiers of modernity, said architect Antonio Citterio.

The University of Milan, home of literature and law, is perhaps the place of excellence of this phenomenon. The installation was like an open theater to present the architecture of the Richini courtyard in a sculptural design produced with a sophisticated technology of a highly innovative ultracompact surface like Dekton.

Twilight Collection
Moreover, Cosentino was present in Milan exhibiting the Twilight Collection made with the ultracompact surface Dekton by Cosentino. Twilight was a collection of table accessories and outdoor candleholders designed by Monica Förster Design Studio for Bianchi Café & Cycles and was presented by Cosentino during the Milan Design Week 2015.

Dekton’s unique resistance to heat and thermal shock have inspired the designer to create the collection. Dekton feels like a Hi-Tech, futuristic material. The material’s unique qualities; its resistance to heat, thermal shock and the fact that it is ultracompact makes it a very exciting material for me as a designer to explore. We have therefore created a collection which is based on these qualities, explains Monica Förster.

* For further information: www.cosentino.com