As inside, so outside: Minotti

'The boundaries are dissolving,' says Roberto Minotti, co-CEO of the Italian furniture brand Minotti with his brother Renato. We are discussing the constantly evolving strategy that has allowed the family-owned brand to continue to grow through decades of shifting taste and significant changes in what we expect of our homes and the furniture inside them – or, more recently, outside them.

In 2006, Minotti set itself the aim of presenting a family of outdoor seating pieces that would reflect the design qualities that has helped define the Minotti aesthetic for more than 70 years. The result was the Alison Iroko Outdoor, featuring squared sofas, armchairs and accessories with an exposed wooden structure.

It proved a timely move. The number of homeowners looking to invest in gardens, patios and other exterior spaces has boomed over the past 15 years. Outdoor living space was named by architects as the most popular 'special function' request from clients in the American Institute of Architects’ Home Design Trends Survey for seven consecutive years. Even the hospitality market has felt the effect of this trend, as consumers demand spaces that feel more like home, outside and in.

'Life inside the home is extending to the outdoors with the same degree of sophistication,' explains Roberto Minotti. 'So we made the decision to invest in quality, style and functionality to give life to a wide range of outdoor living solutions, capable of adapting to different requirements and contexts as well embracing as many tastes and needs as possible.' The success of this first foray led the company to launch its first full outdoor collection in 2013, including pieces by Rodolfo Dordoni, Minotti’s Art Director, who has been working with the brand for more than 20 years.

Minotti quickly realised that there was a huge demand for outdoor furniture that could reflect individual taste and personality, so has since focused on making sure that its collections offer an extensive range of shapes, finishes and colours.

'The company’s outdoor collections also have to perform under the most severe of outdoor conditions', he explains, 'with pieces that can last even after being left unprotected accidentally'. For this reason, Minotti invests heavily in material research, making sure its pieces can perform at their best.

'We pursue a philosophy of seamless transition between inside and outside in terms of style, comfort and quality,' adds Roberto Minotti. 'Our aim is to create pieces that are capable of giving open-air spaces a strong character and personality that are as exclusive, refined, and comfortable as pieces conceived for indoor contexts.'

Recently, Minotti has focused on making this idea of 'seamlessness' explicit, inviting Japanese design studio Nendo and Brazilian architect Marcio Kogan – founder of architecture studio mk27 – to create furniture that is as at home indoors as it is outdoors. Bringing designers in enriches the brand's DNA, says Roberto Minotti.

'We asked them to design in continuity with our collections while respecting themselves,' he remembers of the beginning of the collaboration. 'From one side Marcio Kogan brought his South American spirit and love for architecture, his attitude towards large proportions, light and warm outdoor wood. From the other, the talented Japanese designer Oki Sato (founder of Nendo) brought with him his light, fresh and graphic style. Two approaches and languages, really different, that converged into our idea of lifestyle in the perfect spirit of Minotti.'

The result is two strikingly different seating families – Nendo’s Tape Cord Outdoor furniture, which is a development of its Indoor Tape seating series designed for Minotti in 2018, and Kogan’s Quadrado range. The latter is a generously proportioned, modular seating system best-suited to large spaces – although a more compact version with modules of 87 x 87 cm debuted at the imm cologne furniture fair this January. Partially inspired by the mid-20th-century Japanese Metabolist architecture movement and taking queues from nature in its material choices and forms, the final result is surprisingly restrained and extremely versatile. Tape Cord Outdoor, meanwhile, is profoundly contemporary, an exercise insubtle curves and details that lends itself perfectly to small, urban sites like patios and rooftops as well as bigger spaces. Wicker-effect cords wrap around the back of each seat to provide support and a tape-like ribbon of metal that connects the legs and gives the collection its name. The most recent addition to Tape Cord Outdoor, also unveiled at imm cologne, is a tall stool available in two heights, further extending the practicality of the range.

New pieces from the 2020 Outdoor Collection by other designers will be launched in April at the Salone del Mobile fair. 'No one wants to give up on comfort and beauty outdoors,' says Roberto Minotti. If Minotti gets his way, no one will have to.


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