Fritz Hansen, historic Danish brand for contemporary design, opens its first showroom in Milan, designed by the architect Stefano Tagliacarne, as a strategic platform able to reach the international market.
Situated in a high-level context at Corso Garibaldi 77, the Fritz Hansen showroom is the mirror of company philosophy and a stage for the brand's collections, displayed on a 340 square meters surface divided into three levels: the basement of 70 sqm; the ground floor of 40 sqm; and the first floor of 230 sqm well visible from the exterior.
The Fritz Hansen Milan showroom has various missions: to communicate the rich history of the Danish brand and its famous collections, to emphasize the brand image imprinted by the masterpieces of Arne Jacobsen and Poul Kjaerholm and to express the values of Danish culture in relation to the Italian context.
These premises have led architect Stefano Tagliacarne to design an informal exhibition space where Fritz Hansen design collections are the true protagonists. This means above all having minimized any kind of additional decoration, emphasizing textures, finishes and natural features of the structural elements of the space as well as the exposed products, which, in that way, become decorative elements themselves.
A major challenge to Stefano Tagliacarne was to overcome the spatial irregularity of the showroom, composed by three levels of different size and shape. Tagliacarne links these three levels by the means of a big red column and a wood clad wall, both developing from the bottom of the basement to the top of the first floor.
The wooden wall itself, set up in a spectacular and attractive way with "Series 7" chairs designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1955, becomes an extra exhibition area and a visual guideline from the entrance throughout the whole space and levels.
The entrance at the ground floor connects to the first floor by a concrete spiral staircase, dedicated to Arne Jacobsen's staircase at Copenhagen Radisson SAS Hotel. Thanks to its shape and thickness of only 8 centimetres, the staircase leads visitors and clients of Fritz Hansen showroom upstairs without overloading the space available.
The first floor of Fritz Hansen showroom is characterized by its flexible layout and visual lightness. The big windows visually increase the space towards outside and easily catch the attention of people passing by on the street below (Corso Garibaldi).
The natural light that fills the space, finds continuity in the light concept of Stefano Tagliacarne. Innumerable light-sources are freely arranged, creating diffused light and a shining landscape.
The rough materials used for the concrete stair, the wooden wall covering and the cor-ten steel floor create an interesting contrast with the exhibited Fritz Hansen collections, exalting their high quality finishes and the perfection of manufacturing skills and design.
Stefano Tagliacarne has chosen the finishes of the structural elements also due to their ecological sustainability, convenience and flexibility, meeting essential values of the Danish company Fritz Hansen.
All materials used for the interior design of the showroom are easy to find, to install and to dismantle, allowing future evolutions of the interior project with the possibility to re-use a great number of elements.
Thanks to this choice of materials and to the surface mount electrical installation, Stefano Tagliacarne has also met the need to cover existing structures without dismantling and interfering with them.
With intuition and professional ability, Stefano Tagliacarne has created the interior design of Fritz Hansen showroom in Milan, a rational environment enriched by colours and materials conferring additional values and capable to make people feel at home.