Outlook on Applied Art

The Outlook on Applied Art in furniture was above all created to become the expression of the material culture, to strengthen the tie between the historical memory and the contemporary propositions.
The Outlook could then define, thanks to “exemplary moments”, the different expressions of the project with reference to the evolution of living: objects, installations, “meaningful” works able to help us exploring and defining the steps of our society.
The Outlook is then born with the awareness that the visitor of the exhibitions could be an “attentive watcher” of the developments and transformations of home and collective spaces.
The visitor can be defined as an attentive watcher also because, in the largest part of society, there has been a continuos use of and association with the “environmental models”and the proposed “objects”.
Therefore, the Outlook could directly illustrate the relationship between works and society,
thanks to some formal categories and environmental typologies, in a representation of the social
and cultural roles of handicraft (the ideas of the designer and the ability of the craftsman in interpreting his suggestions), in accordance with the evolution of the various social groups.
The Outlook activity will be then oriented to promote the “furniture” thanks to:
- preservation (permanent collection);
- promotion (temporary exhibitions, seminars, didactic workshops, thematic publications);
- studies and research on materials (laboratory tests, techniques and manufacture, wood species);
- archives (historical documentation, regional registration, publications)

Preservation
The gathered materials, regarding high value craftmade works, will be organized through works in which it is possible to find a tie with tradition.
In this way, the pieces are collected with reference to traditional furniture, referring to three classifications: “Remakes”, “Quotations”, “Suggestions”.
The three proposed models clearly illustrate:
1) the manufacture of classical pieces, perfectly reproduced, that we can sinthetically define “remakes”;
2) the manufacture of pieces reminding of original models, filtered by “interpretations” or “quotations”, modifying them in accordance with new cultural, production and use needs;
3) the execution of pieces reminding of original models, looking at the past as a big store of notions able to stimulate new ideas through the “suggestions”, using then memory as one of the big sources able to spur designing.

The research on materials
One of the main lacks found in this region is the absence of research centres and laboratories able to issue certificates relevant to European norms, therefore laboratories will be created to offer these services, in addition to assistance and knowledge regarding the different materials, their ecological quality and the various techniques still in use.

Archives
Archives represent the possibility to look up in a kind of “widespread museum” all around the region: firms, laboratories, workshops, craftsmen, designers, organizations, history, traditions, itineraries.

Promotion
The programme of the Outlook includes popularizing and promotional activities that range from the exhibitions of pieces belonging to cabinet-making masters, and from the collection of works regarding different subjects, to didactical workshops to enlarge the cultural growth of the operators and to seminars to attain a higher awareness of the role of Applied Arts in Verona manufacture area. The relationship with the other manufacture areas and the popularizing means like thematic and periodical publications.

The project “SIGNIFICANT” FURNITURE - Furniture as expression of values and meanings is the main project promoted by “Aldo Morelato” Foundation and his Outlook for 2004.