Fantoni group

Now, at last, the most prestigious rooms of the famous cult centre of Italian design will feature exceptional acoustics, thanks to the cutting edge Topakustik sound absorption panels offered by the Friulian company which panel walls and ceilings. A new, important intervention by Fantoni Group in one of the most famous cult centres of Italian contemporary design, the Milan Triennale. The company from Friuli, which is a leading group at international level for the production of sound absorption systems and office furniture, is also particularly attentive towards the world of arts and architecture. It has solved the considerable acoustic problem which used to feature the Salone d’Onore and the Sala Lab, the most requested areas of the exhibition venues in Milan for high level events, cultural perfomances and presentations, by panelling them with the Topakustik sound absorption system, one of the leading products of the Fantoni Group. “We discovered the peculiar acoustic problems of these spaces during an event we held in the Salone d’Onore at the Triennale last February for the Made exhibition”, remarks Paolo Fantoni, MD of the Group. - “It was at the presentation of our BlueIndustry 8 book which in fact deals with acoustics and which included a theatre and music performance as well. Since the first rehearsals we understood that we would need several devices to cushion the strong reverberation of the room which jeopardized the pureness of sound. We thought it a real shame that such a prestigious architectural space which hosts important cultural events should be hampered by such terrible acoustics.  Therefore, we suggested panelling the walls of the room with one of our leading products, the Topakustik sound absorption panel, a cutting edge panel which would dramatically cancel the inconvenience of the strong reverberation in both rooms”. Fantoni Group’s interventions at the Milan Triennale involved the Sala Lab, a space devoted to small presentations which can host up to 80 persons in which both floor and ceiling were panelled, and the walls of the Salone d’Onore, the nerve centre of the building which can host up to 350 seats with a total provision of about 600 square metres of Topakustik. In order to minimize the visual impact of the panelling, the panels were treated with white epoxy powder lacquering which, besides not releasing toxic emissions into the environment, also allow considerable saving in the total amount of work. Particularly painstaking were the preliminaries necessary to evaluate the acoustics before actually pannelling the surfaces, which were carried out by architects Livio Consolino and Alessandro Pedron, assistant to architect Michele De Lucchi, the author of the architectural restoration project of the Triennale spaces. “Reverberation in these rooms was really striking before, lasting up to 14 seconds, an eternity”, said architect Livio Consolino. “Thanks to the intervention, the acoustic problems have been solved for good without jeopardizing the architectural features of these beautiful spaces in any way.” Davide Rampello, President of the Milan Triennale states: “I thank the Fantoni Group for the important intervention in the Salone d’Onore and in the  Sala Lab of the Milan Triennale. The application of sound absorption panels allows perfect sound insulation of the spaces cancelling any acoustic problem and upgrading the use of them even to hosting concerts with excellent sound perfomance as well as meetings and presentations”. The partnership between Fantoni and the Milan Triennale is another example of how the industrial group puts its know-how at the disposal of international culture and architecture. With other recent partnerships with the most important centres of contemporary architecture – the official partner of the Biennale of Venice for the third year running -  Fantoni Group is focusing more and more on overall solutions for public spaces in which furniture is just one element. In fact Fantoni’s projects also include excellent solutions for both acoustics and air conditioning, in which the study of partitioning space with painstaking attention to the role of natural and artificial light combines with the steady pursuit of comfort and wellbeing for the user. “It is a natural and logical evolution which has brought us to create flooring and sound absorption panels alongside our traditional core business of office furniture”, reiterates Paolo Fantoni. “And, subsequently, products which integrate different aspects of air conditioning”.