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14/05/2020 | DESIGN, PEOPLE
THURSDAY'S INTERVIEW

DOROTA KOZIARA: FROM MENDINI ONWARDS

Posted by: Gisella Borioli

The first woman to enhance Polish design outside the borders of her Poland, her mentor was Alessandro Mendini with whom she has worked and collaborated for a long time. To the work of designer, sculptress, art-director she alternates the curatorship of exhibitions, such as those dedicated to his master in Poznam in 2004 on the occasion of the entry of Poland into the European Community and in 2014 in Wroclaw in the year in which it was the Capital of European Culture. At Superstudio she arrived in 2011 and many more times.

Dorota between Poland and Italy, how did this happen?
My studio has been located on the Alzaia del Naviglio Grande in Milan for years, but I arrived in the city over twenty years ago for an internship in the Mendini Atelier. I studied in Poland, at the University of Art in Poznań, Faculty of Design and Interior Architecture with a thesis on Biodesign. I won three awards for the best degree and so I had the opportunity to go abroad to deepen my studies. I chose Italy, for its cultural wealth, its ancient history, the beauty of its landscape of its traditions and its people. I traveled around Italy and landed in Rome, for me the most beautiful city in the world with its squares, fountains, gardens, with the wings of angels in the paintings and sculptures of Ponte dell'Angelo...

The first woman to enhance Polish design outside the borders of her Poland, her mentor was Alessandro Mendini with whom she has worked and collaborated for a long time. To the work of designer, sculptress, art-director she alternates the curatorship of exhibitions, such as those dedicated to his master in Poznam in 2004 on the occasion of the entry of Poland into the European Community and in 2014 in Wroclaw in the year in which it was the Capital of European Culture. At Superstudio she arrived in 2011 and many more times.

Dorota between Poland and Italy, how did this happen?
My studio has been located on the Alzaia del Naviglio Grande in Milan for years, but I arrived in the city over twenty years ago for an internship in the Mendini Atelier. I studied in Poland, at the University of Art in Poznań, Faculty of Design and Interior Architecture with a thesis on Biodesign. I won three awards for the best degree and so I had the opportunity to go abroad to deepen my studies. I chose Italy, for its cultural wealth, its ancient history, the beauty of its landscape of its traditions and its people. I traveled around Italy and landed in Rome, for me the most beautiful city in the world with its squares, fountains, gardens, with the wings of angels in the paintings and sculptures of Ponte dell'Angelo. And so I continued my studies in Rome. I was also thinking of Milan, but in those years there was no Design Faculty at the Politecnico. I was very attracted by the Domus Academy or the European Institute of Design with its faculty of Biodesign which coincided with my interests but unfortunately these schools cost a lot for me. I came from Poland where the Solidarność turn had occurred a few years ago, my country recovered with great optimism in a new atmosphere of freedom, but there was also great poverty and scholarships did not allow to attend private universities.

Then you met Alessandro Mendini and did your life take another turn?
Mendini was a master of international design, studying in Poland I eagerly leafed through the rare issues of Domus magazine that arrived in the university library and I had discovered his work. At the end of his conference in Rome, thanks to the resourcefulness of a friend Leonardo Mangiavacchi, (today a great Italian-Brazilian designer with a studio in Rio de Janeriro ) I met Mendini who was preparing an article dedicated to Polish graphics at the time. He invited me to visit his studio in Milan and he proposed a three-months internship there. When I had the suitcases ready for my return to Poland, the Mendini brothers offered me to stop and work with them. I still remember the nice thing that in those days Francesco Mendini told me: "Dorota, feel you at home because in our studio the floor is made of oak wood that we brought from Poland".
The possibilities that Italy and Milan offered at the time for designers, including foreigners, compared to Poland were incredible. Later I was the first to bring Mendini's work to Poland.

What is the most important teaching that Mendini left you?
The sense of "Human" design. And respect for the Human Being. There are some reflections that in this specific period of Coronavirus often occur in my thoughts. In all the things we do the most important values are beauty, empathy and poetry. I realized that the work of architect and designer are jobs that make people feel good. In this period I can not imagine to be in an ugly and gray place… I think that designing spaces, regardless of whether they’re private or public, has a huge impact on people’s lives and emotions. Here this is perhaps the strongest teaching I have learned from Mendini.

Then you came to Superstudio where you brought Polish design several times. How was this experience?
I remember the impression and emotion I felt at every Salone del Mobile by queuing up to enter Superstudio Più. It was among the most important events of the Fuorisalone, endless rows and it is so even today. Superstudio is the place where the greatest designers such as Alessandro Mendini, Tom Dixon, Marc Newson, Jasper Morrison, Giulio Cappellini, Paola Navone, Patricia Urquiola, and many other great or emerging designers exhibited. The most important companies presented the projects with the most innovative research. The most beautiful thing were the set-ups, always very varied, exciting, beautiful, magical. In 2004 Poland joined the European Community. This event was a turning point for me too. European funds have enabled investments by companies and in new technological lines and to start an international promotion. So I started to curate big exhibitions and to promote Polish companies that felt ready to participate in the Salone del Mobile in Milan and to encourage their international challenge thanks to the support and collaboration of Polish ministries. Superstudio Piu was the right place, a special place, a great reference point for design and international culture, where culture meets business and where new interesting paths open up to participating companies.

The city, or the place, where would you like to leave your mark?
Milan without doubt and forever. Milan as the Capital of Design, as the only city in the world where many beautiful minds work in my field, architects, designers, art directors, curators, journalists, photographers, creative visionaries, industrialists and many others. Milan with its long history, with its dynamism and the good fortune of often having capable people at its helm. Milan that respects workers and that is a city of great enthusiasm. But also Milan that knows in all this, even with humility, enjoying life and understanding the beauty of human relationships, that knows how to recognize real talents and that hosts them in abundance of all the arts, whether fashion, architecture or design, music and theater...
I’m happy to have been part of this community for so long.


"12 Angeli" installation, ph. Ramak Fazel
Polish Design, 2013 Superstudio Più
Marshal Office of the Wielkopolska Region, 2012 Superstudio Più
Alessandro Mendini and Dorota Koziara

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