Jean Nouvel Rethinks Office Design for Milan

Jean Nouvel’s special commission for this year’s

Salone Internazionale del Mobile

, running April 9 to April 14 in Milan, will explore the changing face of living and work spaces in recent years. “Project: Office for Living” will include video portraits projected on a monolith in the center of SaloneUfficio’s pavilion 24 at the Milan fairground in Rho and introduce eight spaces that suggest new global formulas for office design.

The Pritzker Prize-winning architect describes the working environments as options for replacing the “gray cultural world of purpose-built offices.” To illustrate Nouvel’s disdain for standard workstations, the center of the 13,000-square-foot installation will have a dramatic, ripped-apart presentation. He claims that one-size-fits-all solutions don’t work for anyone.

“We spend a lot more time inhabiting our workplaces than we spend at home, eating or sleeping,” Nouvel has said. “Offices are therefore living spaces that should be seen not just as the same old method actors playing a functional and effectual role, but as individuals pleased to be there.” The architect’s scenarios have been created for a range of environments: an apartment, loft, private house, skyscraper, factory and the abstract.

Another section of the exhibition will showcase classic pieces of furniture by designers such as Jean Prouvé and Charlotte Perriand as well as new pieces being unveiled at the fair.