Giustini / Stagetti is pleased to present, at the gallery’s new venue in Via Gregoriana, the 1858 furniture collection designed by Formafantasma.

The pieces were first shown at their solo exhibition Cambio, which was held at the Serpentine Galleries in London (2020). Subsequently, it was shown at the Centro Pecci per l’Arte Contemporanea in Prato and at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zürich (2021).

The exhibition focused on the investigation of the timber industry’s supply chains and, more generally, explored the role that design can play in translating the themes of environmental crisis into awareness, information exchange, and collaboration between various cultural and scientific fields.

The 1858 collection (a table, a bookshelf, shelves, consoles, a chair, a bench, a desk and a stool) is made of solid spruce, sourced from the Fiemme Valley forest in Northern Italy, an area that was devastated by the storm Vaia in October 2018.

For the prototypes, the wood of a single spruce tree - just one of approximately fourteen million uprooted by the catastrophic storm - was used.

The title of the collection, 1858, refers to the year this tree developed its first ring. The pieces are characterized by an extremely concise and simple construction, as well as by a geometric virtuosity. By this, we mean that, if on the one hand they represent the minimalistic aesthetics of the 20th century masters, then on the other hand, they can be distinguished by their versatile formal sleekness, typical of contemporary design.

The designers were able to give a particularly transparent and glossy finish to the furnishings by using a lacquering process traditionally used in the construction of musical instruments. This lacquering process allows the grain of the wood to show through, while also making quite tough exteriors. In fact, Stradivari violins even use the same type of wood from the Fiemme Valley.