This is the first design event ever organized at the Musée des impressionnismes in Giverny, Normandy. It comes thanks to the "Constellation" program of the Centre Pompidou, which enables the Paris institution's collections to travel across France and abroad as the museum closes its doors in September for five years of renovation.

The exhibition "Andrea Branzi. Le règne des vivants" ("Andrea Branzi. The Reign of the Living"), on view until November 2, is not a retrospective of the great Florentine architect like the one shown at the Musée des arts décoratifs et du design in Bordeaux ten years ago. Instead, it offers a key to understanding Branzi's work: a vibrant vision of what drove him – the relationship between industrial design and the idea of nature, not wild but domesticated, which he called a "second nature."

Born in 1938 and already a recipient of the prestigious Compasso d'Oro at age 49 for his body of work as a designer and theorist, Andrea Branzi was enthusiastic about this Normandy project, which he was unable to see through as he died on October 9, 2023. The exhibition includes two images of Claude Monet's paintings of the water lily pond, on which Branzi sketched the silhouette of the Parisian artist at his easel while workers build the small Japanese bridge.

You have 83.32% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.