The Poltrona Frau Showroom where Downtown residents, designers and artists were treated to a unique display of fine Italian furniture titled: Barrique: The Third Life of Wood.
In an underground showroom tucked away on Wooster Street, on a recent balmy New York night, Downtowners, designers and artists gathered in the Poltrona Frau Showroom to sip wine and take in carefully crafted pieces of Italian furniture on display.
It may not seem like too extraordinary an image for a Friday night in Soho, especially during New York Design Week, but the event at Poltrona Frau was unique – and not for the guest list or even the unusual origins of the pieces, which were fashioned from old wine casks made of French timber. What was special in that downtown showroom were not only the crafts, but the craftsmen.
No, they were not experts trained from birth in a generations-long family tradition, nor belabored artisans who had studied for decades to master their trade. Instead, the young artists featured in this exhibition were remarkable for another reason: they had created their works of art alongside leading designers while also participating in a community based substance abuse rehabilitation program in Rimini, Italy.
The San Patrignano community, conceived by the powerhouse renaissance woman Letizia Moratti, which houses up to 1,300 residents, including Americans, is unique not only because it is absolutely free, but because it offers training in a specialized skill that will help the participants find a job after they leave. New Yorkers took noteThe buzz of this show in SoHo was the result of a woodworking initiative, known as Barrique: The Third Life of Wood, and was conceived by Italian carpenter Maurizio Riva. Moved by the beauty of “barriques” or wooden wine barrels, and the community of young people at San Patrignano, he thought to reinvigorate and give another life not only to the wood of wine casks, but to the declining craft of woodworking and the lives of the San Patrignano residents.
Serious about the initiative, “The Barrique” paired residents of the community with more than thirty leading architects and designers, including Chiara Ferragamo and Angela Missoni and left them with a mandate to create stunning new pieces of furniture that would be both utilitarian and beautiful.
A brilliant example of the fine Italian furniture designs in the Barrique-Colombo display.
The results are breathtaking. As New Yorkers we appreciate cleverness, which is apparent in Karim Rashid’s designed piece called ‘Inverso’, a piece which utilizes as much of the original barrel as possible by simply turning it inside out. The result showcases the deep red wine-stained inside of the cask and original curves of the wood, creating an attractive, slender end table. Chiara Ferragamo and Davide Rocchi collaborated on the design for a chair which also uses the attractive curve and both the red-purple stained inside and bright-colored outside of the wine cask. Titled ‘Draghessa,’ which comes from the name of the wine that had been stored in the cask – Brunello Campo del Drago –, it embodies Barrique’s spirit of reutilization, renewal and rejuvenation. The ‘Miss Dondola’ – designed by Angela Missoni – used planks from the wine cask overlaid with colored fabric to create a gorgeous hanging bench or swing. “I joined the San Patrignano Project immediately,” she says, explaining she wanted to use the wood “in its essence, not transforming it into something other than itself.”
A piece called ‘Spiros’ designed by Paolo Nava is a collection of staves freed from the barrel, arranged one on top of the other on a central rotating spindle, in order to free them from their “static function” in a “search for infinite dynamic spatial forms in rotation.” The result is a striking art piece which creates visual movement through its use of the wood’s existing subtle arch.
This event at Poltrona Frau, itself the epitome of Italian designed furniture, on one balmy evening in May was not just a testament to outstanding design or fine Italian craftsmanship. It was evidence that with dedication and creativity, anything or anyone can claim a second – or maybe even third – chance at life, something that we Downtowners have always believed in.
--Ruthann Granito
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The Barrique Project pieces are available for limited edition purchase through a special eBay initiative by visiting www.ebay.com and using the key-words search “San Patrignano Barrique”. All proceeds will go to support San Patrignano. The show will make a short return stop in New York during the Fancy Food show from June 30 to July 2.