Typecasting An Assembly of Iconic, Forgotten and New Vitra Characters

During Milan Design Week 2018, Vitra will present the exhibition ‘Typecasting’, a panorama of some 200 objects curated by designer Robert Stadler.

Drawing on the extensive Vitra archives, Stadler places current products alongside icons, prototypes, special editions, rejects and future visions. The social function of furniture in today’s society is a central focus of the exhibition, which is set in the former sports arena La Pelota.

Stadler looks at the objects as characters and assigns them to groups that reflect stereotypical behaviour patterns and personality profiles in contemporary society.

The regrouping and juxtaposition of individual works also reveals new connections, narrative threads and possible interpretations of ‘Project Vitra’.

Another central question of the exhibition is how changes in society could affect established furniture typologies. Various designers – including Konstantin Grcic, Barber and Osgerby, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, and Commonplace Studio – were invited to develop ideas for a collective living space under the title ‘The Communal Sofa’. Robert Stadler also contributed a design to this section.

The Vitra Design Museum will host its own stand at La Pelota, where it is introducing a number of new projects. The museum’s display focuses on new items in the Miniatures Collection as well as the project ‘Atlas of Furniture Design’ – a unique reference book on the history of modern furniture that will be published in autumn 2018 and previewed to the public for the first time in Milan.

Vitra, La Pelota Via Palermo 10, Milano 17-21 April 2018: 10am-8pm 22 April 2018: 10am-5pm