Marmoleum Meets Mendini
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MARMOLEUM meets .

With its main brand Marmoleum, Forbo is the world leader in linoleum. Our floor coverings set the trend in design, quality, innovation and service in both the commercial and private sector. Close cooperation with the Italian architect Alessandro Mendini has Marmoleum is manufactured solely produced six innovative floor from natural materials. Linseed oil designs, each available in from Canada – extracted from the seeds of the flax plant – is one of the most important ingredients. Pine rosins come from Indonesia and China, cork from Portugal, wood flour and pigments from a number of European...

Mendini has made for Forbo be

Platonic relationship Plato is available in a brightly coloured version (in eight Marmoleum colours) and one based on softer shades. The design reflects the principles of pointillism, in which the brush-strokes are abstracted into square shapes overlaid in a variety of ways. With each order Mendini’s signature is delivered on a strip of Marmoleum, ready to be incorporated in the overall design (see an example of how this can be done on page 9).

Plato forte

Plato sotto

Inspired by Harlekino Harlekino – emblematic of Mendini himself – is at the heart of the ‘Marmoleum meets Mendini’ collection. The bright, colourful version refers to a harlequin’s suit, while the softer version has a more classical appearance, which combines wonderfully with marble. Harlekino is composed of seven colours. The colour of the lines that define the diamond shapes can be repeated in a simple border round the edge of the room.

Harlekino forte

Harlekino sotto

Harlekino sotto Harlekino sotto Harlekino sotto Harlekino sotto

Memories of Proust This comes closest to designs made earlier by Mendini such as the Poltrona di Proust. The brushstrokes are clearly visible in this floor, powerfully magnified to a size of about 50 cm. Proust contains seven colours. As with all Mendini floors, the panels can be connected to create a wall-to-wall design. It’s also possible to lay a panel as if it were a rug, creating a strong accent within a larger uniform area of Marmoleum.

Proust forte

Proust sotto

Harlekino forte Forte consists of eight Sotto consists of eight Forte consists of seven colours from the Real colours from the Fresco colours from the Real Example of how to convert the irregular Plato panels into squares Example of how to covert the irregular Harlekino panels into squares

Harlekino sotto Sotto consists of seven Forte consists of seven Sotto also consists of colours from the Real colours from the Real seven colours from the Real Example of how to convert the irregular Proust panels into squares

Australia Forbo Floorcoverings Pty Ltd. 23 Ormsby Place, Wetherill Park NSW 2164 Tel: +61 2 9828 0200 info.au@forbo.com www.forbo-flooring.com.au Germany Forbo Flooring GmbH Steubenstraße 27 D-33100 Paderborn Tel: +49-(0)52 51 - 1803-0 info.germany@forbo.com www.forbo-flooring.de Austria Forbo Flooring Austria GmbH Oswald-Redlich-Straße 1 A-1210 Wien Tel: +43-(0)1- 3309204 info.austria@forbo.com www.forbo-flooring.at Ireland Forbo Ireland Ltd. 2 Deansgrange Business Park Blackrock, Co Dublin Tel: 00353 1 2898 898 info.ireland@forbo.com www.forbo-flooring.ie Belgium Forbo Flooring ‘t Hofveld...

MARMOLEUM meets

MARMOLEUM meets .

Marmoleum meets Mendini is like a marriage that has created six children. Two can be seen as paintings, two can be seen as selfportraits by the artist, and two are ‘normal’ floors. Such cooperation between industry and art has a long and interesting history. In this booklet Frans Haks tells the story behind the close collaboration between Mendini and Forbo.

On the way to the art factory features a number of remarkable examples from the history of the industrial revolution, prefiguring the output of Marmoleum meets Mendini. Design pittorico tells about Mendini’s ideology and methods. Rammendini is an interview in which Mendini explains why he views the cooperation with Forbo as a marriage, and how the results can be interpreted and applied.

On the way to the art factory Ever since the emergence of industrial technologies, manufacturers have sought to enhance and expand the scope of production by involving artists in their work. One of the first and most remarkable personalities to take such an initiative was Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1793). In a catalogue published in 1779, he wrote that it was the duty of Alessandro Mendini every manufacturer to promote good taste. The best and most effective way to achieve this, he claimed, is by using new techniques and materials to produce existing works of art in such large numbers that a...

Design pittorico Mendini’s architecture can be seen all over the world. A brief compendium of his work during the past decade includes several hundred shops for the Swatch and Alessi chains in Europe, Asia and the United States; the new underground stations in Naples; casinos in Switzerland; a cultural centre in Omegna; and a museum at Groningen in the Netherlands. This enormous output is the work of Atelier Mendini, presided over by the Mendini brothers. Francesco deals with the technical aspects, the financial administration and the day-to-day management. The artistic direction is in the...

their advantages in his catalogue shows. Black porcelain is acidresistant and can be just as easily cleaned and polished as copper, silver and gold. It is even possible to put it in an oven without damaging it. He drew his reader’s special attention to ‘Bisquit ware’. While this looks like marble, it is much cheaper and lighter, and therefore extremely suitable not only for copying portraits and busts from antiquity, but also for producing household goods such as vases and bowls. And while Wedgwood didn’t make this explicit, he clearly intended his mass-produced work to achieve more than...

To achieve this, he developed his own method, whereby the principles of one branch of art were transferred to another. One of the terms he used to describe this process was Design pittorico – literally: pictorial design. Design based on pictorial criteria became the hallmark of his work. He felt that decoration should be applied not so much intuitively, but rather systematically to a wide variety of forms in all shapes and sizes. The most highly developed of these systems – the one that has been used most frequently and therefore occupies an important place in Mendini’s oeuvre – is known as...