Paradisoterrestre

Every metaphysical paradise has got its history, its landscape and its beauty as well. According to the religious and literature tradition, Paradise on Earth is a place where divine and human merge and where the human being, aspiring to the Absolute, contemplates his transcendent dimension and shapes the world around him with his sign in order to reach it. During the end of the Seventies the adventure of Paradisoterrestre was thought by the eclectic and revolutionary Dino Gavina, unique figure as publisher, entrepreneur, client, collector-patron, cultural operator with his own aesthetic project. Catalyst of creativeness, Gavina made the dialogue between design and art his distinguishing mark: he collaborated with the most important designers of his age as well as with the “heretical artists”, followers of schools such as Dadaism and Surrealism, never satisfied of the existent, always doing research and innovation, dictating the new canons of the visual culture and aesthetic experience. From 1983 to 2007 Paradisoterrestre has produced design pieces by Kazuhide Takahama, Marcel Breuer, Man Ray, Giacomo Balla, Dino Gavina, Carlo Scarpa, Tobia Scarpa, Alan Irvine and Luigi Caccia Dominioni both for indoors and outdoors, with a particular fondness of the so-called urban furniture. Gavina was the responsible for each manufactured model, from the project development up to its production. His experience of several decades, side by side with the greatest masters, the way he put poetry as centre of the work, the way he felt art and culture as sources of inspiration for every single object, made him decline the avant-garde tensions on an industrial scale, applying the principles of ready made to design. By means of Paradisoterrestre he demonstrated that industrial production could be at the same or even better level of the craftsmen’s works, thanks to the intrinsic guaranteed quality by the implemented processes and above all by the industrial materials, thus making the impossible dreams of designers and artists come true. After 10 years from his death and thanks to Gherardo Tonelli’s passion, Paradisoterrestre comes back to life, giving light to the immaterial heritage of a brand, which left major signs on design history in Italy. In this new beginning Paradisoterrestre submits its catalogue – ranging from historical to contemporary works – which has as its own characteristics the cornerstones of Gavina’s visionary and anticipatory experience: dialogue between art and design; production in limited edition; excellence of the production quality; handwork tradition applied on an industrial scale; language and aesthetic experimentation. Therefore, besides important pieces such as Fiori Futuristi by Giacomo Balla or Mantilla Sofa by Kazuhide Takahama, new products come out, issued by the same spirit and philosophy, such as the collection The Other Side and All Around by French designer Pierre Gonalons or the vases Altabella 23 – Portare acqua al mare dedicated to Carlo Scarpa by artist duo Calori & Maillard. At present Paradisoterrestre is above all a method which puts as a focus the following relations: between the object and the environment where it will be placed, between the designer and the manufacturer, between the artist’s creative identifying mark and the sure touch of craftsmen and developers who translate that mark into something real, between the pure creative and the industrial dimension, always keeping in mind the symbolic value of the project as well as the mark of the human being acting on the environment around him.