Design in the mirror: two iconic mirrors define the design of a room
The mirror,
in the collective imagination
The Caadre mirror designed by Philippe Starck and the Pop mirror designed by Marcel Wanders Studio have entered the collective imagination of interior design at different times, imposing themselves on the international scenario with their own strong identities and different relationships with the surrounding ambiences characterized by their presence.
The Caadre mirror designed by Philip Starck is undoubtedly a classic mirror. Launched in 1998, Caadre is still one of the most requested products in the FIAM catalog. Its large, clear surface imposes itself with softness, easily adapting to the context of even very different environments. Caadre can suit a niche in the entrance, or a large wall of an elegant living room, a refined bedroom or even a modern staircase, casting a spell on its viewer. It is as if Caadre was a door, opening onto an unexpected and mysterious space waiting to be explored.
FIAM Italia has made an art out of the ability to amaze and to bring the material glass from a physical dimension to an emotional state.
With Caadre, for the first time, the flatness of the mirroring surface contrasts with the curvature of the glass elements composing the relevant silvered frame. Two surfaces, both reflective, with different effects, contrasting and harmoniously completing each other at the same time. This multiplicity of reflections and mutual references, able to reveal the surrounding reality on the flat part although modifying it with the curved surface, interpret and decompose the perspective as explained by Philippe Starck: “Perhaps Narcissus has fallen into the water, intent on finding this mysterious mirror, framed with curved glass that reflect truth while with the intention of seeking this mysterious mirror, framed by curved glass, which reflects truth, while changing it? Truth or lie?”. This is the eternal ambiguity of the mirror: reality or imagination, history or fantasy, description or interpretation? Among all this, in Caadre, only astonishment remains.
The Pop mirror designed by Marcel Wanders was launched on the market by FIAM Italia almost 20 years later, in 2017. The high-temperature fusion processes create patterns able to multiply light. The output is a series that is never identical, but rather iridescent: reflections change as the light conditions vary. The fused glass frame of Pop mirror originates from FIAM’s concept of the “lateral thinking of glass”: glass is originally a liquid material, that is then solidified. Fusion brings the glass back to its original liquid state and makes it assume unprecedented conformations, never seen before in its solid state. Marcel Wanders has grasped this fundamental idea and associated it with a new contrast: the suggestion of a sea of bubbles that makes the rigidity of the glass surface apparently soft. The result is a refractive effect amplifies the breath of the surrounding environment. The reflection, which is a reference, a relationship, a multiplicity, dilates the soul of those who observe the world in the mirror.
Curved glass, FIAM's distinctive processing, is now flanked by new possibilities for this material, bringing it to new aesthetic sensations.
Two great mirrors by two great designers, two different eras crossed by different trends and tastes, yet linked by the same wonder. The amazement that glass gives us when we remember its true essence: a liquidity which its true essence: a liquidity that crystallizes, a surface that reflects but also lets itself be crossed by the light, a material that does not absorb but multiplies reflections, generously giving part of its multiple essence to the surrounding ambience and those who live there.
