With “Back to the Future” Fantini Mosaici explores the future of a thousand-year-old technique
Back to The Future is a physical experience
Fantini Mosaici’s creations are the heirs to a thousand-year-old culture of ancient techniques, noble materials and workmanship handed down from generation to generation. The stunning effects achieved through careful and meticulous work share with the art world the talent and the ability to express the excellence of craftsmanship.
Its ongoing search for ever new forms of expression has led Fantini Mosaici to reflect on how one of the oldest artisanal techniques can be projected into the future.
On the occasion of Milan Design Week 2023, a fascinating site-specific installation by AB+AC Architects of Arianna Bavuso and Andre Chedid animates the space at Foro Bonaparte 68, where the brand will open its first showroom in Italy later this year.
Back to the Future is the title of the installation that celebrates mosaic and terrazzo art with a hypnotic, visual and tactile experience.
"Back to The Future is a physical experience," say the authors. "This reflection celebrates the art of mosaics by bringing high craftsmanship - which generally lives in a collective memory of history and tradition - into the future.”
The space is organised in a sequence of rooms that divide the exhibition into two acts: first, the visitors enter a dark room featuring a specially designed hand-made floor of waves alternating with tesserae in precious Nero Portoro and Orobico Chiaro marble. Past this space, they enter the installation proper, which reveals itself in a kaleidoscopic room. This is where AB+AC Architects plays with the visitor's emotions by conjuring up the illusion of a limitless universe, formed by a mixture of precious and rough stones that compose a three-dimensional floor of floating pyramids framed by an endless sequence of portals. The perfect symbiosis of the materials conveys at the same time values of exclusivity and a careful use of resources. Uniqueness is expressed through the infinite potential of custom terrazzo translated into the refined blue variations of sodalite, the stone of logic, capable of transmitting a soothing energy. Preciousness is embodied in Calacatta marble accents proposed in an important grain size. Sustainability is evoked by the use of small-sized tiles of Lasa white and Botticino marble.
Thus, visitors may virtually transcend physical limits and immerse themselves in a futuristic landscape of infinite possibilities, where the past and the future merge, and the art of mosaics paves the way for future generations.
