A full-size home interior installed inside the showcases furniture and homeware by French designer alongside dirty dishes, hanging laundry and personal trinkets.
The Imperfect Home is a retrospective exhibition showcasing over 100 objects developed by since she founded her Paris-based studio back in 2001.
Designed with interiors office , the installation is a 1:1 scale home with seven fully furnished rooms and spaces. But, as the title suggests, this is no show home.
According to curator Marco Sammicheli, the aim was to create the sense that the house was “lived in right up until moments before the exhibition opened”.
As a result, spaces are filled with traces of domestic life. Bedsheets are crumpled, candles are half-burned. There is even a clump of hair left on the bathroom sink.
“I wanted to build a house because I don’t like exhibitions where objects and furniture are put on high bases, like those for sculpture, demanding to be looked at as priceless masterpieces,” Sempé .
“I find that quite boring, and I don’t need to be looked at as if I were an artist; being an industrial designer is enough for me,” she said.
The living room of the Imperfect Home features one of Sempé’s earliest designs, the pleated fabric PO/202 floor lamp with , alongside newer works like the launched by earlier this year.
The kitchen features the for Reform, along with smaller objects like the from Alessi, the characterful Filigraani plates from Iittala and the playful from Moustache.
Other details designed by Sempé include tiles, door handles, lighting, mirrors and bathroom fittings – her is one of the standout additions.
The exhibition reveals the extensive scope of the designer’s output over the past 23 years. There are only a few pieces not designed by Sempé, most notably a 195os toilet by and a 1970s basin by Achille Castiglione.
Other focal points include pieces by artists Mette Ivers and Saul Steinberg.
Personal objects are dotted throughout to give a sense of the house’s owner. For instance, the from Hay displays jars of coins, postcards, and small models of a bird and robot.
Another example is the study, where a map, ink and rolls of tapes are scattered over the desk.
“I want it to look lively, as if the owner has just left to go and buy some bread, and has had a stroke or got hit by a car,” said Sempé.
“The visitors should be like the police visiting the house to find his ID. So there should be crumbs, a couple of remote controls on the sofa, some invoices on the desk, leftovers in the fridge. But the owner does not necessarily need to be dead. He might just have a broken ankle. So we might find some socks.”
The Imperfect Home is on show at Triennale Milano from 15 April to 15 September 2024. See for more architecture and design events around the world.