Digital & design: contemporary Florence
Florence, the city of art and the Renaissance. But how is this creativity expressed today?
With this itinerary, we would like to take you on a discovery of some of the contemporary and avant-garde realities that animate craft and creative production in the metropolitan city. Not only pen and paper, but also modelling programmes, laser cutters, CNC milling machines, scanners, 3D printers in resin, ceramic PLA and many other materials are the tools, the instruments used by today's craftsmen.
Attention to form, lines and movements, combined with an intense study of composition technique, is what binds the realities presented here, concrete examples of realities that have been able to read the novelties of taste and technique and make them their own, using them to give life to design projects of great quality.
The craftspeople you will meet along this route are the mirror of the contemporary: the ingenuity that feeds off the modern clientele listens to and fulfils the needs of a society on the move, in constant search of creations of quality, beauty and in harmony with the meaning of existence. Some realities are distant from each other, both in terms of physical distance and workmanship, nevertheless they are distinguished by a unique design and an uninhabitable character, which makes them undisputed protagonists of contemporary Florence.
Discover the places of doing and the enterprises we have selected, and let yourself be surprised by the most innovative side of craftsmanship!
Comune di Firenze
Die Orte
Etappen
FAF
FAF means Female Arts in Florence Art Gallery and Contemporary shop.
What is it, FAF?
• Women supporting other women
• Respecting cultural exchanges
• Team spirit and inclusiveness
• Contemporary art and handicrafts, hiding a soul
• Leave your comfort zone and enhance growth
• stronger together
• Dialogue stimulates maturity, impossible without a group
• collaboration as a key towards innovation
• circular economy
• dare and experiment
Kentstrapper
Kentstrapper is dedicated to designing and developing high-precision, reliable and user-friendly 3D printers that can be used by a wide range of customers and companies.
Through a MakerSpace we aim to provide creative people and businesses with access to traditional and new manufacturing technologies. An environment with access through membership, created to accelerate the prototyping phase and the transition from idea to product.
Ovotondo
Camilla Catrambone is a paper designer based in Florence. In a panorama increasingly distant from the tactile and artisanal experience, the choice of paper was instinctive and sustainable for her.
Paper is a delicate, resistant and recyclable raw material to be modelled and shaped to give life to creations that are striking in their apparent fragility but astonishing in their ability to create solid and timeless worlds.
Galileo Museum
The museum, formerly the ‘Museum of the History of Science’ of Florence, is dedicated to the famous Tuscan scientist, Galileo Galilei, to whom we owe great astronomical discoveries and the birth of the scientific method. It is a museum derived directly from the Museum of Physics and Natural Sciences commissioned by Pietro Leopoldo of Lorraine. It is organised according to chronological and thematic criteria and houses the main nuclei of the Medici (15th to 18th centuries) and Lorraine (18th and 19th centuries) collections of scientific instruments.
The themes range from astronomy to the measurement of time and space, from geography and cartography to meteorology, from mechanics to optics, from electricity and magnetism to chemistry and pharmacy. Of particular interest are the Renaissance mathematical and astronomical instruments and the section dedicated to Galileo, with frescoes and bas-reliefs depicting Galilean discoveries and the great scientist's instruments.
The museum offers a rich programme of educational activities, guided tours and workshops for children and families.
Takirai Design
Contemporary art to wear. Yoko Takirai and Pietro Pellitteri's jewellery is like small works of art: light, elegant, unique. Together they create innovative design jewellery. In 2002 they founded the contemporary jewellery company Takirai Design in Florence. In 2018 they opened a gallery-workshop in the centre of Florence, where they continue to receive numerous awards.
Il merlo bags
Il Merlo Bags presents leather bags entirely handmade in Florence by Japanese artisan Kyoko Morita.
The refined yet fun design enhances the charm of the wearer.
Her high quality bags, hand stitched stitch by stitch, will fill your everyday life.
Rifugio Digitale luogo d’arte, digitale e innovazione
A poca distanza dal centro, in una strada parallela al fiume Arno e sotto al piazzale Michelangelo si trova Rifugio Digitale un nuovo spazio espositivo e un nuovo centro culturale nella città.
Fino a poco tempo fa un tunnel abbandonato di 165 mq, un vecchio rifugio antiaereo della seconda guerra mondiale, progettato nel 1943 e conosciuto come l’ex Rifugio della Fornace. Finché non è stato acquistato all’asta e restituito alla città con una veste nuova, grazie a un processo di riqualificazione e trasformazione a cura di Archea Associati.
Questo sito tanto intriso di storia, si è così rinnovato trasformandosi in luogo di visione. Presso il Rifugio digitale arte, cultura, passato e futuro si incontrano e dialogano diventando uno spazio innovativo e di grande attrazione.
Rifugio Digitale non è un normale spazio espositivo o galleria d’arte, ma uno spazio contemporaneo dedicato all’arte digitale e alle nuove tendenze, dove l’arte e la tecnologia si incontrano.
Siamo in un tunnel, quindi il percorso è lungo 30 metri con 16 schermi posizionati lungo i lati. Uno sazio estremamente suggestivo per mostre, eventi e performance riguardanti l’arte, l’architettura, la fotografia, la letteratura, il cinema e altre iniziative legate al mondo del digitale.
L’esperienza per il visitatore vuole essere intensa, inattesa ed interattiva generata dall’interconnessione che si crea tra arte, persone ed il digitale.
Concretipo
Concretipo is a graphic design and printing studio, a workshop for self-production and craftsmanship in the printing and publishing industry
Concretipo presents itself to the Florentine and Tuscan panorama with the unique and first Risograph printing service, as well as screen printing, digital printing, bookbinding and handcrafted products made from recycled and recovered paper.
Fondazione per la Ricerca e l’Innovazione
Fondazione per la Ricerca e l'Innovazione (FRI) includes as partners the University of Florence, the Metropolitan City of Florence and the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze.
FRI promotes technology transfer, the initiation of innovation processes and higher education, with the aim of enhancing synergies between universities, enterprises and institutions, actively participating in the development of the metropolitan innovation ecosystem.
The Foundation offers support and accompaniment to teams with innovative ideas on their way to creating start-ups.
MaVoix exclusive wallpaper
MaVoix is a wallpaper brand with an irreverent imagination, which finds full realisation in the contrasts as the basis of its creations.
It is precisely the union of hand-drawn craftsmanship and the realm of Digital Art that gives life to innovative wallpapers that blend tradition and technology.
The collections range from frescos on paper intended to decorate entire interior walls, to patterns that emphasise the structural elements of each interior
Atelier Taftique
In her Taftique atelier in the centre of Florence, Jules Vissers designs and produces tafted and hand-embroidered tapestries. She graduated with top marks in Art Textiles at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence and regularly participates in art and design world events such as the Fuorisalone in Milan and the Florence Biennale.
Each work is unique, numbered and signed by the artist who uses only natural yarns or yarns derived from recycled fibres that she personally selects in Prato.
Spira mirabilis
Spira Mirabilis Gioielli is a 100% handmade in Florence brand that makes silver jewellery with natural stones and minerals. Unique pieces.
It was born in 2013 as the result of an individual and intimate research path of Francesca Grevi, a Florentine artist/designer, who learned the craft "in the workshop" from her artisan father. The concept is to create a piece of jewellery conceived as part of a project (design), which evokes the connection between the stone/jewel and the history of the territory from which it originates.
Alice Corbetta
Alice Corbetta is from Milan, where she graduated in painting at the Brera Academy. Since 2007 she has been living in Tuscany, where she devotes herself to the contemporary decoration of living spaces, creating textured coverings and surfaces in cement and resin.
The particular technique takes on the added value of sartorial uniqueness, weaving relief surfaces in the use of a contemporary material. Alice creates walls, furnishing accessories, paintings.
