Domus 990 on newsstand

April’s editorial speaks to youth – to the 20-year-olds – asking that they be given the time and space to grow, free from the pressures of today’s world.

In the month of Milan Design Week, Domus presents the British-American duo – Sam Hecht and Kim Colin – of Industrial Facility, who define the aesthetic parameters of the industrial product; Silvana Annicchiarico, director of the Triennale Design Museum, illustrates how, in its 8th year, it has rediscovered its narrative vocation and reconstructs the great era of household appliances; and King and Miranda design a perforated tile that allows the passage of light and permeable spatial divisions. Maria Luisa Frisa reviews an exhibition on what is arguably Gianfranco Ferré’s most iconic garment: the white shirt; and Hella Jongerius explains her approach to design, reiterating the importance of human-scale design based on the study of materials and attention to detail.

Domus’ “Youthful Stories, Storie di ventenni” exhibition featuring ten designers in their twenties launches the city’s new Spazio Domus, with the magazine acting almost as its catalogue.

Architecture projects include the new Miu Miu shop in Tokyo by Herzog & de Meuron, the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, North America’s first museum of Islamic art, by Fumihiko Maki+Maki and Associates and Casa Scalesciani, designed in the 1970s by Alberto Ponis in Sardinia. This month’s featured university is in Ljubljana, founded 100 years ago with the birth of Yugoslavia under the leadership of Ivan Vurnik and with two exceptional spiritual fathers: Jože Pležnik and Edvard Ravnikar. Its Faculty of Architecture has always placed professional practice at the core of its teaching. Two professors working poles apart are Francesco Cellini in Rome and Shigeru Ban in Kyoto. The former teaches his students to be rational and intuitive; the latter imparts the techniques and his huge experience in the self-construction of temporary structures. The city explored in April is Matera, seen through the eyes of Amerigo Restucci - not only the city of the Sassi but also the modern conurbation designed by architects from the 1950s on.
Finally, Franco Bernabè’s Elzeviro ponders the relationship between cities and people, now that the Internet is turning things into intelligent entities.