The Italian design company enlists Israeli architect Pitsou Kedem to create a gallery-like space to showcase its collections.
By Rachel Gallaher
The new showroom at the MDF Italia headquarters in Mariano Comense.
MDF Italia, the Milan-based purveyor of modern high-end furniture, recently renovated its headquarters in Mariano Comense to include a dynamic showroom for its collections.
Designed by Israeli architect Pitsou Kedem, the 4,300-square-foot gallery-like space features undulating freestanding dividers that help guide visitors around the room and encourage them to travel between groups of furniture on display.
“We used the sensuous and wavy form of the walls to outline spaces and at the same time to invite the visitor to move across and visit them," says Kedem.
Clay was the only architectural finish used throughout the showroom, as a way to add a subtle, textured background for the contemporary pieces on display, and a series of floor-to-ceiling fins along the windows dramatically filter natural light into the space.
"We strongly wanted the renewal of this space to let it represent in the best way our new corporate identity, after the acquisition of the Acerbis brand,” notes Roberto Cappellini, CEO of MDF Italia.
In addition to designing the showroom, Kedem, who has created pieces for MDF Italia before, also designed Divide IT, a sculptural screen that is part of the brand’s 2020 collection. Made of integral polyurethane and finished in matte white or black epoxy powder coating, Divide IT comes in two sizes, and its rows of rectangular swivel panels can be rotated by 360 degrees.
The Divide IT panel, designed by Pitsour Kedem for MDF Italia. Image by Thomas Pagani.
“The main design idea was to create a mutable wall that could turn from being opaque, silent and uniform, almost invisible, to express in infinite possibilities of geometric and unique compositions,” Kedem explains.
The new space features not only the MDF Italia products, including the new NVL table signed by Jean Nouvel Designs, but also the set of the first Acerbis collection (MDF Italia acquired the brand in 2019) curated by Francesco Meda and David Lopez Quincoces.
All images by Thomas Pagani.