Fabio Novembre Interviewed by Cristina Morozzi

Fabio Novembre, architect and designer, boasts a vast number of spectacular creations, such as the Café Atlantique (1955), the Shu restaurant bar (1999), and the Blumarine store in Milan (1999). In 2010 the Milanese monumental complex "Rotonda della Besana" hosted the monographic exhibition " Insegna anche me la libertà delle rondini" (teach me the freedom of swallows) set up by Peter Bottazzi. In 2009, for the Triennale Museum in Milan he curated the exhibition "Il fiore di Novembre" (November flower).

Fabio Novembre is also the eclectic author of many publications. Let us mention "South of Memphis"for Idea Books, or "Be your own messiah", and "Il fiore di Novembre" for Electa. Finally, he wrote  "Design explained to my mother", a conversation with Francesca Alfano Miglietti, Rizzoli, 2010. He has collaborated as a designer with many companies, including Cappellini, Kartell, Venini and Driade where he currently works as art director.

Among the projects carried out for Driade, a special mention goes the Nemo armchair, made of moulded plastic, shaped like a face: an Italian design icon, both for the originality of its shape and the success of sales. Fabio Novembre also has a magnificently rare narrative ability. We asked him to tell us about the Nemo Armchair.

In 2010, it happens that the name Nemo immediately evokes the little fish protagonist of the Pixar Movie in 2003.  If this question had been asked in the end of the XIX century probably the answer would have been the Captain Nemo protagonist of the book written by Jules Verne in 1870: twenty thousand leagues under the sea. Going further in time, in a classical era around the 800 b.C, Nemo should have been the name choosen by Odisseo to deceive Polifemo the cyclops of the Homer epic poem.

Ulisse, used to disguise, declares that his name is Nemo, no-one in order to escape from certain death: the destruction of the personality under the survival instinct. 

Despite I deeply feel a man of my era, the greek origins of my native land make me associate Nemo to Odisseo. The name becomes a mask used to hide the identity. Mask that in the greek theatre is called also “persona” recalling the name sound that plays the part of amplifying the voice. A project born between the drawing by Ponti of 1950 “Un disegno è un idea” and the romance by Pirandello of 1926 “Uno, nessuno e centomila” for creating a new identity without sexual and geographical features. An identity denied for a renewed idea of collectivity made of eyes that search others beyond the borders and barriers.