Opening Showroom Driade Milan by David Chipperfield

The 500 square-metre flagship showroom at 8 Via Borgogna opened yesterday to reveal the minimal design by David Chipperfield, whose role at Driade was announced last November. Spread across three staggered floors, the all-white space provides a neutral backdrop for the brand's decorative and colourful products, by designers including Philippe Starck, Ross Lovegrove and Fabio Novembre.

Driade showroom by David Chipperfield. Photograph © Enza Tamborra.

Italian design brand Driade has a new showroom designed by David Chipperfield. This new showroom officially opened yesterday on Via Borgogna in the heart of Milan. The projects is the first by the British architect following David Chipperfield’s appointment as Artistic Director of the design brand Driade, David Chipperfield Architects have overseen the redesign of the new showroom opening this Thursday.

"The bright, open space allows interplay between the products as they appear in an alternating sequence of iconic classics and the latest additions to the line," said a statement from Driade. And following the same idea, David Chipperfield Architects said.- "The showroom represents the company identity, serving as both a shop and a gallery. The diversity and depth of the Driade collection will be displayed through a selection of objects and a series of furnishings, from the most iconic pieces to the latest designs."

The first special exhibition in the gallery – Driade, Early Years 1968-1982 – will focus on the early vision of the company’s founders Enrico, Antonia and Adelaide Astori and the designers around them.

Chipperfield is also currently working on the renovation of Mies van der Rohe's Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, while his museum and gallery complex in a converted steel factory in Milan is nearing completion.

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Driade showroom by David Chipperfield. Photograph © Santi Caleca.

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David Chipperfield

Sir David Alan Chipperfield was born in London in 1953 and was raised on a farm in Devon, in the southwest of England. He studied architecture at the Kingston School of Art and the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, graduating in 1980. He later worked with Douglas Stephen, Norman Foster, and Richard Rogers before founding his own firm, David Chipperfield Architects, in 1985.

The firm has grown to include offices in London, Berlin (1998), Shanghai (2005), Milan (2006), and Santiago de Compostela (2022). His first notable commission was a commercial interior for Issey Miyake in London, which led him to work in Japan. In the United Kingdom, his first significant building was the River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames, completed in 1997.

Chipperfield has developed over one hundred projects across Asia, Europe, and North America, including civic, cultural, academic, and residential buildings. In Germany, he led the reconstruction of the Neues Museum in Berlin (1993–2009) and the construction of the James-Simon-Galerie (1999–2018).

He has been a professor at various universities in Europe and the United States, including the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart and Yale University. In 2012, he curated the 13th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale. In 2017, he established the RIA Foundation in Galicia, Spain, dedicated to research on sustainable development in the region.

He is a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and has been recognized as an honorary fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Bund Deutscher Architekten (BDA). He has received numerous awards, including the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 2011, the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association in 2013, and the Pritzker Prize in 2023. In 2009, he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, in 2010 he was knighted for his services to architecture, and in 2021 he was appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour in the United Kingdom.

Chipperfield's career is distinguished by his focus on the relationship between architecture and its context, as well as his commitment to sustainability and the preservation of architectural heritage.

Published on: January 16, 2015

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