(in collaboration with DE VECCHI MILANO 1935)

Historically silver has had a firmly established image. The Santambrogio collection, produced in a numbered series, seeks to rejuvenate its shapes and lightness by combining the preciousness of silver with the transparence of plexiglass.

Andrea Branzi

Apparently the collection of silver pieces designed by Andrea Branzi and made by De Vecchi Milano 1935 does not follow unforeseen, exhilarating paths, is not searching for "new" shapes, nor are production techniques called upon to find "new" ways to follow post-2000 design. What makes it interesting is the proposition applied by Branzi: the eternal condition of "things", where "things" does not mean narrating simply about objects of use, which these items actually are, but about elements - whether they are fragments of nature, theoretical places or meditative scenes - which convey thoughts and produce a tangible dignity. In this search for the eternal condition of things we must acknowledge a certain courage in design, which like the Nouvelle Vague, brings out the "splendour of reality" through the elimination of the artificial. This in addition to the shared view of the world of design as a dialectically humanist sphere, which Dilmos has been able to cultivate in his long, happy activity. These silver objects (vases, bowls, bases) are not a search for performance in craftsmanship, where De Vecchi Milano 1935 holds the record but, like immobile monoliths of light, are "indifferent to the fragmentation of the world and knowledge, they are like macromolecules endowed with their own profound nucleus" (AB). They float moon-like, supported on plexiglass bases, which make them cultural roots are far apart but which at the same time are indispensable for design culture.

Angela Rui

march 2014