Gift of the Magis

Alberto Perazza, son of Magis founder Eugenio Perazza, loves that he’s seeing his company’s Puppy Dog everywhere. Designed by Eero Aarnio for the Me Too collection of Magis, the accessory in the shape of the dog was originally designed for children. But it is such a whimsical conversation starter that you will find it in environments where no kids exist! Why, you will even find it in places apart from houses.

Perazza has seen it in banks, hotels, offices, lobbies and public spaces. “One of the good things about the Puppy is that although it is meant for kids, people of all ages buy it for themselves. It has been used in television a lot, while offices or hotels use it as a mascot.” 

The Puppy Dog comes in matte and gloss finishes. The gloss finish almost looks like fiberglass but it is actually rotationally molded plastic. Magis does it in the standard orange, white, black and the special color red. “But we are quite flexible for some contracts,” Perazza adds.

In Manila, you will see the Puppy in Dimensione stores, which has been carrying the brand Magis for the past 10 years. In fact, it is one of the store’s most memorable pieces, which also carries other Magis products including chairs, tables, containers and other accessories.

Perazza was in Manila last week to give a talk at the Bench Tower, where they had set up an exhibit of Magis products, attended by architects, designers and design students.

Founded in 1976, Magis is the Latin word for “more,” and less is more describes its design philosophy best.

“The style of Magis is producing to a minimum — less use of material, less use of energy, less environmental impact. Yet the products are very flexible, you see them in residential, in contract, indoors and outdoors. We work with different designers who have different backgrounds and design languages, and we like the fact that we work with a lot of them. The thread that connects all of them is design, function and industrial process.”

 â€œWe are a small company, we are only 45 people,” Perazza adds.

Designers that have worked with Magis include Philippe Starck, Karim Rashid, Jasper Morrison, Eero Aarnio, Enzo Mari, Javier Mariscat, Marcello Ziliani, Stefano Giovannoni and Klaus Hackl among many others.

The turning point for the company, according to Perazza, was the year 2000 with the Air-Chair by Jasper Morrison. Magis brought existing technology — used to make industrial products — to make a chair through air molding. The process combines a relatively simple design with a sophisticated gas-assisted injection molding process. Morrison’s the first example of a chair made by air-molding where the emptying of the frame is not simply applied to the volumes with a small tubular section, but all throughout the extensive and complex volumes of the chair and its backrest.

Perazza says this is one of his favorite pieces and adds that as soon as it was released, it became an instant classic.  Another one of these is the bottle wine rack, also by Jasper Morrison. “We owe a lot to it because it won several awards and was included in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Victoria and Albert Museum in London. It was the first product designed by Morrison for Magis and it gave the company attention and visibility.” 

In 1984, Magis came out with the ladder called Step, a project by Andries and Hiroko van Onck. “It was snubbed when it first came out, because the furniture store circuit was not a place for ladders; they were supposed to be sold in hardware stores. Then things went the way they did, and Step met with enormous success, especially in furniture stores. It was the first product to light Magis’ fire — with regards to design as well as cash flow. In twenty years a million of them have been produced.”

Stefano Giovannoni’s Bombo is another famous chair that was an extraordinary commercial success. Today, Bombo is an icon; it has created a style. “It is often copied and imitated. But Bombo remains Bombo. Its copies are another story, a different chapter, and it is not a chapter about creativity and design.”

Other Magis icons are: Piggyback, a project developed by Magis with the young English architect Thomas Heatherwick. Two rectangular tables with the same dimensions in one, which can be used one on top of the other, therefore as a unique table, or placed adjacent to each other obtaining as a result configurations that are not possible with “normal” extending tables (thanks to the top borders), or as two separate tables.

The coat stand Four Leaves and the umbrella stand Poppins by Barber & Osgerby, plus the Déjà-vu mirrors and the wall clocks Tempo and Cuclock by Naoto Fukasawa.

A noteworthy design by Thomas Heatherwick is Spun, a polyethylene chair that rolls — a surprising twist on conventional furniture design made by rotating a single profile outward over 360 degrees.

Also famous is S.S.S.S. or Sweet Stainless Steel Stool by Philippe Starck with the technical collaboration of Luigi Barei. Starck said of the chair, “When we designed S.S.S.S. and the Magis family said they shall produce it in stainless steel, I thought: impossible. They are magicians, and they did it. Unique and incredible.”

Perazza says that that is what sets Italian design companies apart — and especially Magis. “In Italy there’s a fertile ground where companies meet the designers and talk, where the network plays a very important role. Your designers, the production and prototype people and the engineers, they all talk to each other. Also, the fact that many companies are not large companies — they are rather small and a good share of them are family-run businesses and so they are prepared to invest for the long term. They want to raise the bar higher and do research. We’ve always been a technologically innovative company — and there’s a lot more that will still come out.”

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Magis is available at Dimensione stores located at Alabang Town Center, Bonifacio High Street, Eastwood Mall, Greenbelt 5, Glorietta Homezone,  Robinsons Ermita, Rockwell Power Plant Mall, SM Mall of Asia, Sm North EDSA, TriNoma Mall, Robinsons Magnilia and One Parkade.