Heritage Landscapes vol.4

Can 13th-century maps be made to float as if they were planets? Oculi Mundi is a delicate, precise and spectacular digital project. What does it do? It turns maps into worlds to explore.

Oculi Mundi is based on maps, celestial charts, atlases, globes, and historical books from the Sunderland Collection. All 130 objects in the collection can be explored in multiple modes: a three-dimensional one, to get lost and end up randomly on a spectacular map; and a grid-based one, more analytical and precise.

The project moves between histories, name-based indexes, sources and dates; there are paths that teach how to read ancient maps and in-depth studies. Between works with the hand of Dürer and Holbein or a heart-shaped map from 1566. The precision of the digitizations and the beauty of the navigation allows one to establish a personal relationship with the maps, to look at them for a long time, to get lost among fantasies and forms of the world long gone. And so open the doors of the collection to the merely curious, children, scholars and enthusiasts as well.

The idea is to bring that knowledge to everyone. To return the many ways, the many eyes, and the many points of view with which one can look at a single map. An excellent purpose, supported by creativity that can transform a wonderful object on a shelf, into a world that can be explored anywhere.

On January 10, 1914, Columbia Pictures was founded. To celebrate its anniversary, it decided to create a site that is divided into three parts: one that allows you to explore the history of the studios; one that celebrates the history of those 100 years; and a movie-themed quiz where you can discover your personality profile for fun. There is also a video going through some of its best films, to get another 100 years of laughs, tears, inspiration and great cinema off to a good start.

Between Marco Polo and the arrival of porcelain in Europe, between technological inventions and the new espresso cream, here is the story of an icon, bearer of memories, aesthetics, culture and ideas. Through experimentation, games, flavors, and images, Lavazza recounts, in one of its editorial paths, the queen of coffee: “la tazzina”.

A retrospective devoted to Enzo Mari's work, the same one that debuted in 2020 at the Milan Triennale, opens at the Design Museum in London on March 29. Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Francesca Giacomelli, the exhibition spans 60 years of the Italian designer's career, including archival objects, projects ranging from furniture to children's toys to conceptual works. While you wait, we recommend the 5-part podcast Il Michelangelo dei Fiammiferi, created by Matteo Caccia for the Triennale.

Credits: Columbia Pictures; Lavazza; Enzo Mari, The Design Museum, Danese Milano, Triennale Milano

On March 10, 2021, our CEO Andrea Montorio published the book "Promemoria" for Add Editore. A kind of guide, a path capable of explaining step by step the secret of preserving memories. The 9 chapters wind through narrative moments, time capsules, moving and simple exercises; investigating through everyday situations the very ancient practice of archives. A simple but fundamental act, very close to us, which told by Andrea Montorio offers a new sense to the ability to collect in a precise and structured way the most beautiful moments of our history. We thus discover that if everything has its natural place, the place of "things that have a history" is always the archive.

It has also been made into an audiobook for Audible, where accompanying us through chapters, boxes, labels and memories is the narrative voice of Oliviero Corbetta. You can find it here.