Diotti Italian Modern Wall System Designs
28 August 2009
“Waking Up In Italy”
When wall systems first came out, I have to think that they were viewed as the most innovative idea anyone had yet devised for a living room, but as the years passed, the simple wall system because just that—simple, and enormously repetitive, to a point where those of us with creative impulses would just rather find another medium in which to work. Because what is it, really? For the most part, it is little more than some boxes on a wall, put together in a number of fairly predictable ways. But Diotti A&F has just slapped the bejabbers out of that particular concept! Yesterday, I wrote about their traditional line of wall systems. Today, I would like to write about one of the most impressive displays of creative design—and all the variations—I believe I have ever seen.
Mark Twain said that the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the same as the difference between lighting and a lightning bug, a point I bring up because the same can be said for design and innovative design. Or, as we would put it these days, some of us have it and some of us don’t. And this is immediately apparent when one considers the vast array of modern design wall systems available from Diotti.
I think what most impresses me about their output in the category of modern wall systems is (1) their starting point and (2) their incredible output. Some years back I heard Leonard Bernstein’s dissertation on the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, in which he pointed out the vast array of ideas presented in that movement, all of which were based on the opening motif, a mere four notes! Minimalism, which is so integral to modern Italian design, means that the basic design itself will be reduced to its essentials. So, in the case of our wall system, we will simply be putting boxes on a wall, right? How many ideas can you come up with that? And at this point, it is all I can do to contain my enthusiasm for what Diotti has done on their website.
I have shown just four different wall systems on this page, but I hasten to add that this does not begin to do justice to their output. If you go to the page on their website for modern wall systems, you will see 144 variations of wall systems, every one of which begins with a number of boxes and then ends up doing some of the damnedest things I have ever seen done with those boxes. They are storage, they are decorative, they are arranged just so and re-arranged and painted and stained, and shaped and re-shaped, and I don’t know what all.
And it doesn’t end there. The pictures you see are thumbnails—click on them and you are taken to a separate page and are then introduced to two, three, four, five, six different variations for that particular system, and they do it for every system they have. A number of these pages begin with an apology for not yet translating the Italian copy into English, but there are those pictures, and truly, they say all that needs to be said. But multiply the 144 systems by the number of variations, and, well, I’m getting a headache, I really am. How in the world can anyone come up with something like that!
But I guess that’s the difference between those of us who can and those of us who really, really can! Henry David Thoreau said, “Only that day dawns to which we are awake.” To which I would reply, MAN, does the sun shine brightly in Italy!
Joseph
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