ILBAGNOALESSI One

“In 2014 new ceramics, including two versions of the console basin, a new bathtub and new bathroom furniture items come to enrich the “One” bathroom project designed by Stefano Giovannoni, which is thus confirmed as one of the most complete and long-lasting scenarios for the bathroom ever to be produced at industrial level. The bathroom is increasingly becoming one of the most interesting places in the domestic environment where people can give their imagination free reign. The overall bathroom setting is much more than just a place where we clean our bodies: it provides us with the symbols with which we mediate the internal conflict between affective codes that reside in the less valued parts of the self – between the urge to regress and the need to grow, between the maternal code, focused on the fulfilment of needs and the gratification of our infantile self, the childhood code, centred on play, the erotic body code, deriving from the contemplation/exhibition of our body and the paternal code aimed at performance and the promotion of growth. Beginning from this premise, the “One” project focused on the expressive language of a model of dreams and play wherein the designer skilfully blended the four groups of affective codes. Elements clearly based on the maternal code (porcelain pieces in particular, round and soft) are thus combined with obvious features from the paternal code (furnishings with clear and precise geometric lines), the erotic code (the evidently phallic faucets) and the childhood code (the playful movement of the retractable bathtub mixer faucet or the opening of the drawers in the tall cabinet). The formal elements of this project are highly innovative and exemplary: by harmoniously balancing the four affective codes Stefano managed to transcend his own personal stylistic paradigm, which has characterized practically all the best design of the 1980s and 90s. Using a highly innovative approach to design, which I would define as ‘metastylistic’, he was able to freely and adroitly draw from the extensive vocabulary of forms that have been made available to humankind, creating objects that are at once more striking and more human.”