The eagerly awaited Courmayeur Design Weekend is back, a four-day event that combines design, sports and culture at high altitudes, fostering close collaboration and interaction between companies, designers and the territory.
From Thursday 9 to Sunday 12 February, the city of Courmayeur comes alive with installations, talks and a touch of competition on the trails thanks to the famous skiCAD, the skiing contest for architects and designers, now at its 23rd iteration.
It was precisely skiCAD, in 2020, that prompted Paola Silva Coronel (founder of Studio Coronel) to create the entire program of the Design Weekend, with a lively calendar of exhibitions and encounters, this year with the theme of “verso(la)meta.”
The focus is thus on the relationship between real and versatile worlds, explored through five installations around the city, design displays in shop windows, talks and projects of augmented reality on the slopes.
Courmayeur Design Week-end, Italy – Photo © Courmayeur Mont Blanc
The installation by Gio Latis STUDIO – a gigantic Vanity Fair XXL which Poltrona Frau has dedicated to the initiative – marks the start of the outdoor exhibition itinerary at Piazza Brocherel.
“Metaverso Gateway” by Studio Giuseppe Tortato Architetti, in the Waldensian church at Piazza Petigax, brings together artistic creation and artisan methods. A focus on the world of offices and schools, on the other hand, and their reciprocal relations, can be seen in the installation “L’ALPHAbeto del futuro” designed by 967arch inside the Courmayeur Convention Center. This is also the location of “Noosphere,” a project by the Milan-based studios Park Associati and Piuarch on the theme of relationships. Progetto CMR heads for higher altitudes, specifically in the snow lounge of Plan Checrouit, with “Verso(il)bivacco Camardella”: a work of minimal architecture that is a tribute to the memory of Edoardo Camardella, referencing the refuge named for him on the Rutor glacier at La Thuile.
Kartell @ Skyway Monte Bianco, Courmayeur, Italy
Also on the mountain, but this time at Skyway Monte Bianco, Punta Helbronner has been set up for the preview of “Alps Made”: three designers from the zone introduce the project of the magazine Images on creativity in the Alps, starting in 2024.
In the city, the itinerary continues through the windows of the boutiques, which become temporary galleries: a display of objects and projects to narrate the work of Giulio Cappellini, winner of the Compasso d’Oro for the Career in 2022, through his creations and the interpretation of the architect and designer Ilaria Marelli.
The encounters accompany the installations. From the Design TED talks in the company of various furniture brands that are partners of the event, moderated by Giorgio Tartaro, to the “Talks on top” with Piero Lissoni at Skyway Monte Bianco, all the way to the conference on “creativity in art and design” with the architect Giulio Cappellini and the gallerist Deodato Salafia.
