How Formafantasma and Cassina Challenged Popular Thought at Theatrical Design Week Performance

MILAN — It has been almost a century since Le Corbusier, together with Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand, presented their revolutionary modern vision of living at the 1929 Salon d’Automne. Are we living any better?

This was one of the key takeaways from a performance Monday created by designers Simone Farresin and Andrea Trimarchi of Formafantasma set in Milan’s Teatro Lirico Giorgio Gaber.

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Animals were personified in “Staging Modernity,” where performers chanted, “We are the animals, be modern again with us,” in lament to the machine à habiter, French for “machine for living,” that the famed trio had long ago presented at the annual art event, which is held in Paris to this day.

“In light of the ecological crisis, can we be human without others?” Farresin asked the crowd at the start of the performance, which was spearheaded by Italian theater and opera director and set designer Fabio Cherstich.

Considered a disruptor at first, over time their machine of living became recognized as a functional shield from the outdoors and inspired the design world in the decades that would follow. In 2025, the reverse is true. Humans’ struggle to reconnect with the outdoors can no longer be ignored.

“He [Le Corbusier] was seeing the home as a shield from the outdoors, which was somehow threatening for humans. We think because of the ecological crisis, it is interesting to start to see the houses open toward the outside. It’s all changed. And it is a way of confronting modernity with a new perspective on the world that surrounds us, where we see the outside, the animals as not only resources to extract, but actually creatures to live the planet with,” Farresin said in an interview.

Inside the theater, the duo took the floorpan of the Salon d’Automne and reinterpreted it with wild boars, foxes and birds adorning the stage after having infiltrated a modern home strewn with furniture from Cassina’s Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand Collection, in celebration of the 60 years of its production by the Italian brand. Animal voices were projected in the form of prose and song via human performers dressed in Jil Sander, analyzing the way in which humans live and how their urban migration has affected their own universe.

When Cassina started manufacturing and distributing this collection in 1965, it was an incredibly forward-thinking decision, Cassina chief executive officer Luca Fuso explained.

“This collection represents modernity and we want to give a different interpretation of modernity today. So this is why we entrusted Formafantasma for the curation and Fabio Cherstich for the direction of ‘Staging Modernity,’ to question what modernity really means today. At Cassina we’ve always tried to diffuse design culture with a constructive approach,” he told WWD. The idea to showcase in a theater was “revolutionary” for Cassina but through the combination of natural elements, juxtaposed with the products, “it made it all come alive.”

Spanish designer and architect Patricia Urquiola, who is art director of Cassina, told the crowd that in light of global turmoil, the time has come to start asking questions and enacting change. It’s also OK to ask questions regarding our past to find out where the world is headed, she contended.

“The motion we have in this moment is something difficult to explain but it’s something we can share. Why they [Formafantasma] accepted to work with us, I think they have the talent, they have a critical attitude and critical way of thinking and at the same time, they have an understanding, sensible proximity. They are very important. The possibilities of Salone del Mobile are very strong. We are all on stage. I hope we all find a way to move the limits of our system and approach other disciplines,” she said.

Formafantasma’s Milan and Rotterdam, Netherlands-based design studio has become involved even more in Milan Design Week, which closes here Sunday. They have become known on the global design stage through their work with design and fashion brands like Flos, Bitossi and fashion and jewelry brands like Max Mara and Bulgari.

In March 2023, the same year Rubelli tapped Formafantasma as its creative director, the duo conceived the sophomore edition of Prada Frames, a symposium backed by the Italian luxury brand to explore the complex relationship between the natural environment and design.

This week they also unveiled “In Transit,” the three-day event — also backed by Prada — at Milan’s Central Train Station inside the so-called “Padiglione Reale,” or Royal Pavilion in English, a hall once reserved for Italian royalty and heads of state waiting to depart.

With Cassina and even Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand, they found common ground, Trimarchi said. “When you look at those objects from these three incredible creators, who were also exploring the medical field and work environment, they responded to the moment through their furniture, according to contemporary times. I would say we are aiming to do the same,” he said.

To perpetuate its legacy, Cassina continues to work closely with designers’ foundations and their heirs to help in the discovery of the lives of key figures. Induction into its realm of design masters is an honor bestowed upon bygone greats and 20th-century masters like Perriand, Le Corbusier, Jeanneret and Ico Parisi, who have all had their work become part of Cassina’s iMaestri universe, which was first presented to the public in 1973 with icons by Gerrit T. Rietveld and Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Since then the upscale furniture company has used the project to fuel research behind some of the most significant pieces of furniture by leading figures of the Modern Movement.

Launch Gallery: A Look at Cassina x Formafantasma’s “Staging Modernity” Installation

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