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Friday Five with Giulia Molteni

Molteni&C is a family-run design house founded over 80 years ago by Angelo Molteni, which also now includes Unifor (office furniture), Dada (kitchens), and Citterio (partition walls and office furniture), all under the Gruppo Molteni umbrella. Granddaughter Giulia Molteni graduated in 2003 with a degree in Economics and Business from Bocconi University and later on acquired a Marketing certificate from NYU in 2006. She spent four years in New York at Loro Piana before joining the family business in 2007 as Retail Manager of the global their flagship stores. The Como-born Giulia is now the Marketing and Communications Director of Molteni&C and Dada and has been on the Board of Directors of Aidaf, the Italian Association of Family Businesses since 2016. This week’s Friday Five takes a look at five sources of inspiration for the busy married mom of two.

Photo by Giulia Molteni

1. New York City energy
Where I used to leave for 4 years after university more than 10 years ago, Soho is my favourite neighbour. I love the adrenaline, the mix of people and cultures, the sky, often in a special blue colour because of the ocean wind. Something I miss now in Europe.

Photo by Giulia Molteni

2. Portofino
The small town near Genova, it is one of the most cosy place in the world where I used to go with my parents by boat, an old riva acquarama, from when I was a baby. Now it is the perfect place for an aperitivo with my kids during the summer weekend. A poetic view of the sea life.

Photo © designboom

3. Milan design week
The most popular design fair from 1961, Salone del Mobile, has changed Milan’s overview and prospectives. It is seven days of events, installations, from all over the world, a mix of furniture, fashion and trends. You can’t miss it if we talk about contemporary life.

Photo by Giulia Molteni

4. Tokyo and the Japanese culture
A place very inspirational for many designers, like Jasper Morrison or Patricia Urquiola, Tokyo architecture and design approach is very expressive. Graphic design is also always very innovative.
The Japanese tradition for sophisticated and detail oriented design is distinctive if you think about their attention to the small and with an attention to the human scale.
When you visit Tokyo you are immediately struck by the scale, size and intimacy of the things around you.

Gio Ponti – Villa Planchart, 1955 Caracas credite: © Gio Ponti Archives

5. Gio Ponti’s Villa Planchart, Caracas
My favourite Milanese based architect and designer, is one of the big fathers of Italian design. The Planchart collectors’ villa in Caracas (1953-57) was one of the projects dearest to Gio Ponti. As he wrote in Domus in 1955, “I dedicated myself heart and soul to designing Villa Planchart, and in it I was at liberty to express my own approach to architecture, both outside and inside”. The architecture reflected the ideas he had gathered during his trips to Latin American in 1952-53. it is a complete work of art, a synthesis of art, decoration and design. It is “dedicated to Anala and Armando Planchart”, great collectors of art.

Caroline Williamson is Editor-in-Chief of Design Milk. She has a BFA in photography from SCAD and can usually be found searching for vintage wares, doing New York Times crossword puzzles in pen, or reworking playlists on Spotify.