TAVOLA ARMONICA

Dining Table

Project data

  • Year
    2014
  • Tipology
    Domestic Furniture
  • Client
    Riva1920 Spa

Description

The internationally renowned chef Massimo Bottura and the curator of the Pavilion Zero of the Expo 2015 Davide Rampello, in collaboration with the Diocesan Curia of Milan and the Caritas Ambrosiana, will create a refectory within an ex-theatre in the suburbs of Milan giving birth to a unique space where solidarity and art meet.

The refectory, in fact, will host artworks made by some of the most important Italian contemporary artists as well as world renowned designers, who will transform a simple soup kitchen into a unique space where poor people can feed both their mouth and their soul. As a great act of condemnation against the food waste, all the guests of the Refettorio Ambrosiano will taste meals made by some of the most famous chefs of the world using the surplus ingredients coming from the great organization of the Expo 2015.

Also poor people have the right to have a decent life and the Refettorio Ambrosiano will welcome them in a place which will be both “beautiful and good”:
good because it is a place of solidarity and beautiful because the beauty of art creates emotions as well as dialogue and relationships.
We hope that these people can experience again the act of enjoying a meal together, as they do with their families, because we want them to feel again part of a community.

Caritas Ambrosiana

From the Round Table to the The Last Supper the object of the table has always played a significant symbolic role. The table is a place where to meet and confront, a place where to share, understand and welcome the others. No other emblem, then, can better represent the great project of art and solidarity that is the Refettorio Ambrosiano.

For the very first time, the best of Italian artists, designers and chefs have gathered to contribute to the creation of this unique place of beauty and generosity, offering their works of art. In this catalogue, you can find the 13 tables that some of the most important designers of the Italian scene have designed specifically for the refectory.

All the projects are presented here along with brief texts written by the authors themselves who wanted to express their sources of inspiration.
Thanks to the collaboration with Sotheby’s, who has planned the auction, and with the Italian wooden furniture company Riva1920, who will produce the tables, everyone can support this charity project purchasing a beautiful object, both aesthetically and ethically.

Each table will be manufactured in six copies: the first one will be put in the refectory, while the other five will be put up for auction. Each piece will be unique, since it will have the original logo of the Refettorio Ambrosiano, the brand of Riva1920 and the signature of the author who have designed it.
Buying one of the 13 tables of the Refettorio Ambrosiano is more than a simple purchase of a beautiful piece of furniture: it is, above all, a gesture of great generosity.

– Davide Rampello –