London based Italian designer Martino Gamper, along with Maki Suzuki, Alex Rich and Kajsa Stahl, has taken the traditional Italian trattoria concept and shaped it into a series of events to create both an environment and a meal.

 

Gamper’s design process works with ingredients in a way that is reminiscent of cooking methods. He treats types of objects like traditional dishes, ones that have a solid principle but by challenging the established combination of ingredients, new recipes emerge and the results evolve

 

There have been 22 Trattoria events previously arranged in London but Total Trattoria at The Aram Gallery was the first one where new designs have been commissioned specifically for the exhibition. The commissioned pieces include not only the design of the dinner tables, but also tableware and decorations, lighting, seating, the cooking preparation area and storage shelves – anything that Gamper qualifies as an element of the environment – including food. A meal prepared by Martino Gamper was served on 6th March 2008.

 

A dining chair, a table and a fruit bowl are all known entities, but when they are on Martino Gamper’s chopping board they are transformed. While they become a fresh variation of their type they also take on a physical manifestation of his interest in a big idea: in which the whole becomes an unexpected result of the combination of its parts.

 

Photographers Adrien Bugari & Shira Klasmer