Encounter the master artisans of Bottega Ghianda at Homo Faber, 14- 30 September

 
Treasured by top designers for their skill and flair, the artisans of Bottega Ghianda draw on their passion and respect for wood to make exceptional wooden objects out of this beautiful living material.

• Five artisans from Bottega Ghianda will be present at Homo Faber in the atrium of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini’s beautiful Cenacolo Palladiano, demonstrating their fine craftsmanship live.
• Visitors will discover techniques including handmade polishing as they watch these artisans at work.
• Witness the ‘little miracles’ created when great craftsmanship is applied to a beautiful material like wood, bringing the vision of designers to life in wonderful ways.

Master woodworkers from Italian artisanal company Bottega Ghianda will participate in Homo Faber in Venice this September in the exhibit Poetry of Wood.

Five of the company’s master artisans will demonstrate their fine craftsmanship in the atrium of the Cenacolo Palladiano, the room restored by Italian architect Michele De Lucchi, now the company’s Artistic Director.

Based near Milan, Bottega Ghianda produces some of the most refined objects of Italian design. Founded in 1889 by Iginio Ghianda, the company has been a benchmark for artisanal, manual skill for well over a century. Under the direction of Pierluigi Ghianda, one of Italy’s most famous cabinetmakers who was known as the ’poet of wood’, the company became recognised for the excellence of its fine handmade wooden products and its successful collaboration with designers such as Gae Aulenti, Mario Bellini, Cini Boeri, Livio and Piero Castiglioni, Gianfranco Frattini, Carl and Emanuela Magnussono, Pino Tovaglia and altri.

Romeo Sozzi took over Bottega Ghianda in 2015 and brought De Lucchi on board. Together they committed to building a future for the prestigious brand whilst living up to its remarkable history. Where Pierluigi was an artist, Romeo Sozzi is a visionary entrepreneur with an obsession with beauty, a love for perfection and a great respect for craftsmanship, which he believes can create “little miracles”.

“A wonderful material like wood is able to generate true works of art,” says Sozzi. “Each type of wood has its own characteristics: scent, veining, colour, texture, weight. Only the skilful hands of an artisan are able to perceive, understand, interpret, enhance its potential and transform the material into ‘talking objects’, all different from one another, perfect and with a unique soul.”

Visitors will discover how Bottega Ghianda’s contemporary ‘poets of wood’ work with these natural variations to create exceptional, one-of-a-kind objects by hand. Epitomising the value of handmade, Bottega Ghianda is a perfect fit for Homo Faber, which seeks to showcase the very best creativity and craftsmanship across Europe.

“Being present at such an important event in the extraordinary context of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini is very exciting,” says Sozzi. “Homo Faber is a declaration of love to celebrate the manual work and show the world that artisans are artists.”

Poetry of Wood is one of 16 exhibits that make up Homo Faber: Crafting a more human future, a major new exhibition celebrating European craftsmanship, organised by the Michelangelo Foundation.