Walter Musacchi, originally from Ferrara, Italy, studied architecture at the IUAV in Venice. He completed his studies with a project on the subject of „Empty spaces in the dissolving city“ with Bernardo Secchi. After graduation, he worked in various architects’ offices worldwide (Paris, Berlin, New York, Rotterdam and Los Angeles), including with Jean Nouvel, Rem Koolhaas and Michael Gabellini. In New York he designed various interiors and items of furniture, mostly for fashion houses as Jil Sander and Prada. In 1998 he was invited to be the lead designer for the first Berlin Biennale. At present he lives and works in Berlin, where he endeavours to match his own provocative and reductive approach, with the expectations of his corporate and private clients. Committed to sustainable human development, Walter Musacchi is forever investigating the contradictions of contemporary living in today’s continuous stream of rapid global changes. The ethical design of Walter Musacchi by Stefano Gualdi Walter Musacchi lives and works in Berlin, a city known to be receptive to all kinds of changes and innovations in society, particularly in the field of culture, nature, contemporary architecture where historical buildings from the most varied of epochs and styles stand – not without ambiguity – side by side. They are “signs” that, when interwoven, form a “complex”, heterogeneous and multi-coloured fabric, which has the power to evoke various realities, without discriminating in favour of any particular one. For Walter Musacchi, born in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, ethics and professionalism are indivisible. As a result, his work rejects pure formalism as well as aesthetic complacency. Rather, he strives to follow a third path that will lead to the creation of both functional and ironic objects, which, as far as possible, connect to the space for which they are intended. In so doing they avoid increasing both industrial production, which today has reached a massive scale, and avoid burdening the environment with new materials. In this sense Musacchi investigates possible new modes of expression and meaning taking existing fragments and shapes as a starting point– like the DJ does in the field of music. It was in this way that in 2002 the unusual series of furnishing elements and “liveable”soft upholstered furniture emerged. The hybrid, imaginative and totally communicative shapes, as well as the use of recycled material are the hallmarks of the series. This thoroughly provocative stance brings forth not the status, but the actual morphological quality of material, indicating that it is possible to escape the logic of categorical division into “high” and “low”. This is achieved by consideration of the seemingly infinite variety of commodities produced and consumed daily by our society. This technique of “borrowing patterns” from the real world produces works such as „Snock“ – a giant stuffed fabric snake which can be knotted at will and changed into various seating elements, for use both in private and public areas – perhaps in a lounge or hall. Another example is „Bouquet“, where commercial garden hose is transformed into flower vases, and „PLUG“ stackable chairs, made from ordinary industrial foam commonly used in the building trade.