Maarten Baas
A unique and unforgettable event at Milan Design Week
Client wish
After a few years of absence from Milan Design Week, Maarten Baas wanted to come back with a solo show located in an unconventional location, somewhere off the beaten track. The designer was seeking a special location where he would have the chance to present his vision of design and be able to produce a substantial part of the show in situ, hence applying an art residency approach.
Analysis
Maarten Baas is known for his critical, playful and simultaneously thoughtful work. After becoming a ‘child prodigy’ of the design world, Maarten experienced an incredible level of exposure and he took a break from the craziness of the Milan Design Week. A few years later he felt the need to join the Milan Design Week again. So ‘the return of Maarten Baas’ in Milan needed to be an unforgettable and unique event. An unusual and impressive location was required and it had to reflect the spirit of Maarten Baas, the way he lives and makes design.
What we did
We scouted a very special location in the heart of old Milan. Just a few steps from the Duomo Cathedral and the Milan Stock Exchange, hidden within a web of medieval alleys, the Garage San Remo venue was the ideal place to present the imaginative circus of design pieces, design provocations and live performances that Maarten had conceived for his solo show. Dressed up as a circus director (as a way of criticising the circus the Salone has become), Baas entertained the design crowd at Milan as they had never been entertained before. The location had the perfect theatrical atmosphere, it could also serve as a laboratory during the production period and it had never been used before as an exhibition space. Drawing on our local contacts and relations in Milan, Organisation in Design assisted BAAS with many aspects of the production. Under the umbrella of Ventura Projects, the “BAAS IS IN TOWN” exhibition was able to benefit from our international communication strategy. In order to attract even more attention, it was launched as the opening event of the brand new design district Cinque Vie.