Paola Navone is an Italian architect and designer. She was born 1950 in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

Early life and education

She grew up in Turin and went on to study at the Polytechnic University in the city and graduated in 1973. While she was there she studied architecture and after moved to

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

to start her life as a designer.Bailey, Spencer. "Paola Navone." SURFACE. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Aug. 2015.

Career

Paola Navone has worked in many creative industries as an architect, product designer, business consultant, interior designer, shop and restaurant designer, exhibition and event organizer, lecturer and teacher. She is a self-proclaimed work addict with many skills and passions. Her clients have included Driade, Swarovski, Abet Laminati, Casamilano, Alessi, Knoll International, Cappellini, Roche Bobois, Armani Casa, Martinelli Luce, and

Habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

. From 1970-1980, she made her way up by working alongside Alessandro Mendini, Ettore Sottsass Jr, and Andrew Branzi in a group called Alchimia. Navone has always had a disregard for convention, which she developed during her time with the 'antidesign' rebels led by Mendini and Sottsass. 'It was crazy, what we did. Working like mad to produce the utterly useless,' she says. 'But it was a catalyst. It produced a lot of energy and gradually, much later, our inventive thinking has been absorbed by industry.' In 1983, she won the prestigious Osaka International Design Award for Abet Laminati. She was supposed to enter only one design but instead she entered 50 because she could not pick just one. In her later works, she has collaborated with Crate & Barrel and

Anthropologie Anthropologie is an American clothing retailer with approximately 200 stores across the U.S., Canada, and the UK that offers an assortment of clothing, jewelry, home furniture, decoration, beauty products, and gifts. Anthropologie is part of ...

. In 2023 she organised an exhibition titled ''Take It Or Leave It'' at the annual

Milan Furniture Fair The Milan Furniture Fair ( it, Salone Internazionale del Mobile di Milano) is a furniture fair held annually in Milan. It is the largest trade fair of its kind in the world. The exhibition showcases the latest in furniture and design from countrie ...

. The unusual show presents hundreds of objects and curiosities selected by the designer to be distributed to the holders of a winning ticket thus transforming each object through "a radical form of

upcycling Upcycling, also known as creative reuse, is the process of transforming by-products, waste materials, useless, or unwanted products into new materials or products perceived to be of greater quality, such as artistic value or environmental value ...

and reuse."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Navone, Paola Italian designers Architects from Turin Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Italian women architects