Featured
Call from the future
Anna Moldenhauer: “Calling the future” marks the company's 50th anniversary by creating a link between the past, present and future. What role does a telephone booth from the 1970s play in this?
Roberto Caspani: The 70s telephone box is a symbol of voyage through time, between tradition and innovation. There is a temporal link with the decade in which Cleaf was born, 1975, as well as a meaningful connection. In the 70s, the box was used to connect people via the telephone. This year, we are presenting new functions that will once again connect people. It is a way of conveying the message that we and our materials can adapt to change, bringing beauty to the world around us.
Calvi Brambilla & Partners: The yellow SIP telephone booth from the 1970s is the pivot of “Calling the Future” — a familiar design object full of history, reimagined as a contemporary symbol of connection. Back then, communication meant being in a specific place, taking the time to reach out — it was intentional, even a bit ritualistic. The booth captures that spirit and turns it into a poetic reminder of human contact. In the installation, we gave it a new meaning: from a cultural icon of the past to a beacon that invites people to "call" the future — to start a conversation across time. As an oversized DJ booth, it becomes something alive and performative — moving from a piece of everyday history to a bold expression of what’s to come.
The concept consists of three projects. What exactly do they involve?
Roberto Caspani: The event-installation by Calvi Brambilla and Partners at the Pirelli HangarBicocca plays on the connection between past, present and future. A very long curved table runs between The Seven Heavenly Palaces, a permanent work by Anselm Kiefer, representing the desire to connect people to build the future together. The long table and 300 chairs are specially designed using some of Cleaf's textures. The future is then represented by a DJ set: the DJ's station is set up in an oversized phone box, while in the background, visuals created from the maps that characterise the textures of the Cleaf surfaces are projected. Vudafieri-Saverino Partners' installation for the corporate showroom CCube transforms the iconic SIP phone box of the 70s into an urban shelter in the age of the smartphone. A new way of experiencing shared space through collective or private interactions. At the centre of the stand designed by Bestetti Associati at the Salone del Mobile.Milano, a phone box invites you to stop and leave a message for tomorrow through a temporal answering machine. The phone box is located at the heart of a labyrinth that evokes the chaos of the city, amidst sounds, images and buildings. One concept, the different projects, three different duration – one night, one week, one year – three different architectural firms.
Bringing people together to shape the future is one of the key points of the installation. How did you achieve this in the special space of the Pirelli HangarBicocca?
Calvi Brambilla & Partners: The installation was imagined as a space to live in, not just something to look at. Instead of a traditional setup, it feels like a shared landscape — something you move through, sit down in, and become part of it. Inside the dramatic setting of Anselm Kiefer’s "The Seven Heavenly Palaces", a long, curved table cuts through the space, inviting people to gather, talk, and stay together. Around it, 300 chairs — all made with Cleaf surfaces — feel like a quiet audience, ready to join the conversation. Light and scale play a big role too. Out of the darkness, the bright yellow phone booth stands out, surrounded by a hundred small lanterns inspired by its shape. In the end, the whole setup feels like a kind of stage for connection — where materials, memories, and ideas all come together.
Roberto Caspani: The Matrice texture is a reinterpretation of the historic Matrix, which began life as a sandblasted larch. The design is made more contemporary by creating channels that are not linear, but dynamic and interrupted as if by hand. The visual effect is one of a matt surface enhanced by shiny micropores. To the touch, it feels like an organic substance. The Nebulosa texture is characterised by a series of shiny micro-details that contrast with the opacity of the background. The final effect recalls the interstellar clusters of dust, hydrogen and plasma from which it takes its name. A dynamic surface, extremely soft to the touch.
The surface materials show great variety. Why is this important to you and how did Calvi Brambilla incorporate this into the installation?
Roberto Caspani: With more than 60 textures that can be combined with 600 decorative papers, the number of products in our range is unique in our sector and defines who we are. We increasingly need to guide our clients to help them find what they need, suggesting interesting alternatives. The idea of dividing the collection into four material effects – wood, metal, fabric, stone – is part of this approach. It's a collaborative effort involving R&D, marketing, sales and production.
Calvi Brambilla & Partners: For us, surface design isn’t just about finishes — it’s about how people relate to space. When we started working on the installation, we saw Cleaf’s wide range of textures as a kind of toolkit: each surface offers a different way to shape mood, identity, and atmosphere. We wanted to make this diversity tangible. That’s why we designed the long table as a kind of material timeline — a linear, tactile showcase of Cleaf’s design vocabulary. Every choice was intentional, playing with contrast, rhythm, and spatial flow. The digital projections on the big ledwall at the entrance added another layer: we chose their textures and reinterpreted it, turning surface patterns into moving visuals — translating the physical into the atmospheric, matter into image.
The Calvi Brambilla & Partners team works in an interdisciplinary manner. To what extent was this noticeable in your collaboration with Cleaf?
Calvi Brambilla & Partners: Working with Cleaf was a true exercise in interdisciplinarity — not just as a concept, but something we lived and developed throughout the project. We naturally move between architecture, storytelling and scenography, and this fluid approach helped us create an installation that feels both layered and cohesive. You can really see it in the way we balance form and meaning: the curved table isn’t just a sculptural gesture, it’s also functional and inviting. Meanwhile, the sound and visual elements merge technology with emotion, creating a multisensory experience. Bringing all these different design languages together around a shared vision was key to making the project feel whole and meaningful.
What aspects are currently most important in shaping Cleaf's path into the future?
Roberto Caspani: The ability to connect and involve people with very different cultures and approaches remains the key to facing the future.
