Milan Design Week is that time of the year in Milan that the city becomes the capital of Design and Creativity. It is also the right place and the right period to bring into display works that have a deep meaning. This is what has happenend with the project: “La Foresta dei Violini”: Piuarch's tribute to the lost forest. From the 8th to the 19th April 2019 at University of Milan, an evocative installation showcases the relation between nature and music, the spruces and the arts which from that wood give life to emotional instruments. 

On the 29th October 2018 a storm and a 200-km/h-wind ravaged a centuries-old natural balance, hitting more than 12 million trees on the Alps. Among these there is Paneveggio Forest, also known as Stradivari's Forest. A place renowned for the spruces growing there: their wood has extraordinary features, and it has been forever used to make the best acoustic violin sound cases, which master luthier Stradivari chose for his masterpieces.

Based on a concept by Nemo Monti, Piuarch designed an evocative installation which will stand out in the Main Courtyard of the University of Milan within the INTERNI HUMAN SPACES event.

The project is sponsored by CityLife, with the support of the Province of Trento and the Magnifica Comunità di Fiemme (Magnificent Community of Fiemme) as technical sponsors providing the wood used to build the installation.

"La foresta dei violini" is an evocative sign of the lost forest, and its absence. A tribute to the territory, to the forests, to the nature; to the communities that create their crafts thank to that natural environment, as well as to the wood supply chain born on those territories; to the arts that create those wooden instruments and to the artists that those instruments play to give back emotional music. Made of rough wood, using broken trees eradicated by the wind, “La Foresta dei Violini” represents a place of memories, witness of the violated nature, where architecture is both support and relief.

The Installation

Two large spruce trunks emerge from the loggia of Main Courtyard of the University of Milan: the roots suspended in the void overlook a balustrade on the courtyard, supported by an architectural easel made of worked red spruce wood.
Disrupted trees, segments of memory, evidence of the infringed nature. Roots in the wind.

Architecture remains in between. The easel is an elementary support, the essential structure, whichfollows the work in all its stages. The artifact is a bridge between things and ideas: a geometric shape that lies in the wood carving, in the intersection of straight forms, it is the sum of singularities.

It bears the weight, connects different borders, has many names and functions in the human jargon. For these reasons it is the simplest, most common and universal symbol of the ancestral relationship between technique and nature, between raw material and transformation. Made of worked red spruce, it is the archetype of the craftsman work who repairs.

"We want to celebrate the primordial architecture of the forest, respecting its structures and forms of intersectionwith the planet and its inhabitants. This project evokes the ability of nature to communicate with human beings, inviting them to tactfully observe its rules, taking care of it and following the natural order of the earth," stated Piuarch.

Additional information about the project:

Design: Piuarch
Concept: Nemo Monti
Sponsor: CityLife
With the support of: Provincia Autonoma di Trento, Magnifica Comunità di Fiemme
Photo credits: Leonhard Angerer

> via Nemo Monti