Stefano Maffei: “Defining an interpretative framework is essential in order to understand the value of data”
Stefano Maffei, Professor at the School of Design at the Politecnico di Milano - Ph.Glauco Canalis
A conversation with the architect and Doctor of Design Stefano Maffei alongside the presentation of the Milan Design (Eco) System Report, conceived and promoted by the Salone del Mobile with the scientific oversight of the Politecnico di Milano
From sustainability to legacy in the field of urban regeneration, to strategies to be put in place to address more urgent challenges, from hospitality to mobility, communication squatting and other latent critical issues. The Milan Design (Eco) System represents the first chapter of a larger research project curated by Susanna Legrenzi, Press & Communication Strategy Advisor of the Salone del Mobile.Milano, in synergy with the Department of Design - Politecnico di Milano. Through data harnessing, the Report takes a scientific approach, to produce for the first time a clear picture of a phenomenon of international scope, giving rise to the first permanent Observatory dedicated to a globally unique event. We talked to Stefano Maffei, Architect and Doctor of Design, and Professor at the School of Design at the Politecnico di Milano, starting with the paradigms of modern cities to understand the challenges and opportunities thrown up by these dynamic organisms that are called upon today to review and improve their economic, social and environmental models.
The interests that bring together different visions of a city's future make for great complexity. What direction does a contemporary metropolis want to take today? Which assets should be invested in, to produce both economic and social and community development? The great inductors of potential such as the Salone del Mobile, in its role as an international attractor, and the whole universe of events in the city help to forge an extremely powerful reputational whole, engendering favourable conditions for the city, but equally, the city itself needs to be taken care of 365 days a year in order to function. This can be achieved through agreements between stakeholders to build new perspectives. The issue is how to do it well, and also how to do it for everyone. On one hand, this involves private initiative, which has the great ability and the intellectual and financial energy to put good quality initiatives in place, and on the other, it needs to be complemented by public input in order to create a virtuous and competitive system. As the sociologist and urban planner Charles Landry pointed out during his lecture at the presentation of the Salone’s first Annual Report at the Teatro Grassi, an organisational culture is needed.
There is a somewhat outdated view that the idea of system building coincides with team building. If we adopt a view bound up with social network theory, we know that networks do not express intentionality and pursue it, but act in a complex manner. Therefore, if we wanted to review the meaning of the concept of system building, we would have to say how it works and understand what the intervention strategies are, which in fact are never directly proportional, otherwise we would simply be living in a cause-and-effect world. This makes the issue of system creation less intuitive and linear. Equally, we need to find a way through this complexity, harnessing quantitative and qualitative data to get to grips with a complex dimension that is not immediately perceptible with common logic. The more than 270 pages that make up the 2024 Annual Report provide an initial, extensive prototypical analysis, expressing this approach: helping us to better frame the relationships within this system and to understand that the causes and effects are by no means simple.
Two completely different cities come to mind. On one hand Copenhagen, although it’s of a completely different magnitude because it represents a more contained system than Milan, where the public-private relationship is represented by a very strong strategic complementarity of investments. I find interesting to monitor a genesis process on a private entity that has built an event like 3daysofdesign. This is a model that cannot be replicated as is in Italy, but it does allow us to understand that there also is a less clear-cut distinction between the Design Week of Milan actors. This is demonstrated by the Salone, in its role as a promoter of business but also of an increasingly robust and rich cultural offering. Another vision I would like to mention is the city vision of Shanghai, because it constitutes one of the very large metropolises. Thinking about what happens to the communicative power of Milan when it has to deal with such an important market is very interesting. It was by starting up again with Shanghai that the Salone, and its cultural projects, successfully invested in China with new exhibition formats designed to trigger greater reciprocity. I would also like to include Barcelona, a city that is becoming a conference location: the potential of the hospitality trade fair system has been transformed and marketed throughout the year.
As Charles Landry pointed out, the aim is to turn Milan from the capital of design of the world into the design capital for the world, capable of promoting culture and legacy, thanks to the system of companies and the people who make it up and help to enrich it with their work. This would give us a robust chance of not being just a once-a-year place with a global value in which people are brought together, but a place that is permanently alive.
The Annual Report is a foundation stone, a project as a starting point for possible developments. The Permanent Observatory has two characteristics: a scientific side that must continue to integrate the quantity of sources and their granular depth on one hand, and the need to define an interpretative framework on the other. Data need to be interpreted, and like all constructive processes, this derives from the mindset of the person looking at them: there is no such thing as unbiased data, it becomes so after a lengthy process of reconstruction and verification of interpretative influences. This operation requires negotiation with the data holders, who are also stakeholders: subjects who preside over the places where data emerge, and who are also of interest when it comes to investment and transformation. The plurality of voices is necessary to build a vision, which starts from a shared culture, education process and milieu. Just like jazz, improvisation begins with extreme competence.
