There was a moment in the history of kitchen design, when the cabinet front kitchen typology was transforwed. It happened when a quite unique, revolutionary model was developed with a framed front that was innovative but at the same time inspired by tradition. Its name was Gioconda, it was the work of architect Massimo Iosa Ghini and it was a kitchen that “set the ball rolling”, as it were, for the New Classic style that is so popular today. Until 2000, traditional kitchens had been a patchwork of elements borrowed from the classical past. Gioconda, a kitchen Snaidero is still making, burst onto the scene with a different approach based on dose attention to stylistic features that elegantly mixed together design and historical research, hand-crafted methods and industrial technology. When Gioconda first appeared in 2000 its aim was clear: to create a 'long seller': a model designed to last», losa Ghini explains. «What we set out to do with this model was similar to the kind of process the Volkswagen Beetle and the Mini underwent in the car industry. So we started with an iconic style of kitchen and brought it up to date in terms of design and materials, and gave it a cabinet front that displayed a ‘timeless’ style. Of course because we were working for Snaidero this was always going to be an industrial product, not a piece of hand-crafted cabinetry, so it needed to be designed in a way that would lend itself to a very rapid manufacturing process. And the kind of front that would best satisfy this production requirement was one moulded in a plastic material, in this case through-coloured polyurethane. So a moulded front is attached to the industrially-made carcasses and structures to produce the kitchen. Alternatively, Gioconda was (and is) manufactured with wood fronts.
Today, production of this model is being brought up to date to fit in with the firm's new industrialisation criteria». In 2014, many years on from the highly acclaimed and highly-successful Gioconda, Iosa Ghini found a way to revamp the New Classic mood, which he hiwself had launched all those years ago, thinking up a new design, again for Snaidero: Frame. «Once again taking the industrialisation of the kitchen product based on standard modules as the starting point, I designed the front for Frame which, although having a surround (indeed a ‘frame’), was designed in a different style. This is a ‘clean’ frame, so to speak, with a surround that measures just 5 cm across and doesn’t have a handle, so it has a more contemporary character, and an industrial or classic feel depending on the finish and other details. SpeciaL features include the metal hood and the self-supporting steel structure for the wall units and countertop, which visual lightens the volumes».
So this simple, elegant ‘Frame’ is a very special element. And this same front with a 5-cm frame has also given rise to two other models: Heritage and Kelly, which are more traditional in style yet still belong to the New Classic area. «By working on the volumes and on the components, but keeping to the same type of front on Frame, with Snaidero we have been able to create a wide range of kitchen products. Orto put it another way, we have achieved multiple results using limited resources. In this way industrialisation becomes synonymous with concepts of optimisation for consumption and processes, and is therefore sustainable. This is not at all about impoverishing the product, but about getting the best out of the manufacturing processes». The latest stages in the evolution of the Frame model are Frame Classic, Frame Elegance and Frame Industrial, «which maintain the same framed front as the basic Frame front, but are differentiated by having certain details and their different finishes. The new Elegance is particularly sophisticated, with its dark lacquerwork and warm metal surfaces.
SOURCE: AMBIENTECUCINA DICEMBRE 2017
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