Signature Kitchen Suite, the new high-end brand of built-in appliances of the LG Electronics group, chooses Italy for its debut on the European market and inaugurates on Piazza Cavour in Milan the brand’s first showroom in Europe, a new reference point in the city for lovers of food, design and innovation.
With a strategic location in one of the Milanese districts that symbolizes design and furnishings, the new showroom has an area of 1100 m2 on three levels – ground floor, basement and mezzanine, with 15 windows facing Via Manzoni, Via Fatebenefratelli and Piazza Cavour in dialogue with the urban setting, which metaphorically enters the internal spaces, full of items that pay homage to Milan and its great design masters.
To underline the close bond with Milan, LG has entrusted the interior design to one of the leading studios of the city, Calvi Brambilla, asked to interpret the interaction of tradition and innovation in the kitchen and the home, through original, unexpected architectural and design solutions.
The tradition-innovation dichotomy is closely tied to the True to Food philosophy of Signature Kitchen Suite, which through its range of appliances with high-tech performance emphasizes passion and respect for food, and for the entire production chain of quality, recouping important values from the past.
On the ground level the products are decontextualized in a space resembling a contemporary art gallery; to accentuate the contrast, pure volumes in pink metallized lacquer reference the colour of the marble of the cathedral of Milan, almost like sculptural monoliths, to convey the idea of innovation.
At the entrance a large black monochrome wall, through a set of LED screens, built-in appliances whose clean lines allow them to seamlessly take part in the composition, and design objects typical of the kitchen environment, sum up the philosophy of the brand and its three key words – food, design and smart.
Finally, there is a large area set aside for cooking demonstrations: an island like a stage, a kitchen of extremely minimalist taste, in white grosgrain glass with pink steel borders, where the appliances are the protagonists.
The trait d’union between the ground floor and the basement is a theatrical spiral staircase, with an impressive video wall, that occupies the whole wall and metaphorically converges on the large lobby of the lower level, completely made in steel, the main material of the appliances.
By way of the staircase, passing through the lobby, one reaches a domestic setting, the imaginary residence of the gallerist, where the subdivisions between the spaces are not rigid, but suggested by architectural and graphic devices: each room has its own specific colour, interpreted in a ton-sur-ton arrangement.
In the basement, Signature Kitchen Suite presents a number of products by other brands of the group – LG Signature, LG Objet, LG ThinQ™ – to demonstrate LG’s ability to offer smart crossover solutions in all the zones of the home.
As a tribute to Milan, the design capital, the showroom presents furnishings exclusively created by Milanese designers, including Achille Castiglioni, Franco Albini, Angelo Mangiarotti, Luigi Caccia Dominioni.
The most functional area of the showroom, the mezzanine is the home of the Food Academy, the true heart of the project: this space welcomes cooking courses and activities connected with the passion for food in all its guises, organized in collaboration with Andrea Vigna, the chef selected by Signature Kitchen Suite as Food Experience Director.
The facility is transformed from a showcase into an active, lively location, an integral part of the city, a hub in which to narrate and share the True to Food philosophy, based on immense respect for food and its history.
