‘Dubai is a kingdom of visionary’: An exclusive interview with Italian architect Fabio Novembre

I am not sure quite what to expect from Fabio Novembre. The “about” section of the famed designer’s website is brimming with such lofty sentiments as: “My lungs are imbued with the scent of places that I’ve breathed, and when I hyperventilate it’s only so I can remain in apnoea for a while” and “As though I were pollen, I let myself go with the wind, convinced I’m able to seduce everything that surrounds me.”

So I place the call to his Milan studio with some reservations. Novembre is widely regarded as one of Italy’s leading architects and designers, with a portfolio that spans carpets for Capellini, lanterns for Kartell, the Transformers-esque Robox shelving unit for Casamania, superheroes for PespiCo, espresso machines for Lavazza, pill-shaped vases for Venini, retail stores, nightclubs, large-scale installations – and almost everything in between.

He also has a long-running relationship with AC Milan that has seen him design the football club’s Casa Milan headquarters, as well as the jerseys worn by the players for the current season.

I am calling him because he is due to visit the UAE this month to present a keynote speech at Design Days Dubai 2017.

As it turns out, Novembre may tend towards the philosophical, but he also talks a lot of sense, and is unexpectedly warm and generous with both his time and his opinions.

He has, in previous interviews, referred to himself as a “total maniac”, so that seems as good a place as any to start. Do you have to be something of a maniac to be a good designer, I enquire? “In a way, yes. We are all obsessed with certain things,” he says. “You just have to be selective about what those things are and use your obsession as a tool to help you look deeper into things.”

Novembre is obsessed with people – particularly those of the female persuasion, he tells me. “I’m very basic. I’m fascinated by people. It doesn’t surprise me that we are at the top of the food chain, that we have been able to surpass even the strongest of animals. Yes, we are smart and have these big brains, but we are also able to transform the conditions around us. Think about single individuals that have been able to completely transform the world. People like Mahatma Ghandi.

“As a male, I am also fascinated by females,” he adds, insisting that any man who says otherwise is lying.

Novembre’s fascination with the female form manifests itself throughout his portfolio, but perhaps most obviously in Divina, a Milan nightclub that he designed in 2001. The club takes the form of a faux art gallery, with oversized nudes by some of art history’s greats, like Titian and Ingres, hanging from the walls. It is deliberately provocative but also an unashamed celebration of the female form.

He recognises that this is a part of his oeuvre that he will have to delicately circumnavigate during his talk in Dubai. “I will of course make a big effort and I am very respectful ,” he says.

So what will he be talking about while he is here? “It’s really quite simple. I’ll be talking about the things I do, which in turn are a mirror of the universe that surrounds me.”

Is that the role of the designer, then, to mirror the universe? “A designer is a filter. The role of the designer is to act as a critical conscience for people. As I’ve said before, designers shouldn’t answer questions, we should ask them. We should present the questions.”

Novembre was born in 1966 and trained as an architect, at a time when the primary tools of that particular trade consisted of a pencil and a rubber. The problem was that he was, by his own admission, “really bad at drawing” and as a result knew he was unlikely to find work in an architecture studio. So he moved to New York to study film direction at the New York University and also got a job at an art gallery.

A chance meeting with the Italian fashion designer Anna Molinari provided Novembre with his first big break – in 1994, she commissioned him to design her first Asian store, in Hong Kong.

More than two decades on and Novembre says that he now feels ready to take on that ultimate prize: “Bigger architectural projects.”

He is wiser now, he says, and more mature, a direct result of having become a father. An obvious manifestation of this evolution was his approach to his own home, he explains. Previously, he “could have lived under a bridge”; it was only after he settled down with his wife and had his first child that he felt the need to create a real home.

“We need to evolve as human beings. It is acceptable for young people to be selfish, but not for adults. For me, creating a home was a symbol that ‘me’ was over and there was only ‘we’.

“You go from saying ‘me, me, me’ to ‘we, we, we’. I think my work is becoming less about aesthetics for aesthetics sake. You start thinking in bigger circles. You become more generous. That has always been a part of my work – it is an embrace, open arms. But it has become more detailed, more careful.”

As with many of the best designers, it is almost impossible to put a label on Novembre’s aesthetic. He draws heavily from Italian history, is ever-conscious of the human condition, has a predilection for movie references, particularly Federico Fellini classics, but is also extremely forward thinking in his approach.

What is important to him is that he is known as “a designer of the present”.

“Unavoidably, we all come from somewhere and we are all going somewhere. But what is important to me is the present. I’m a designer of the present – because that’s when you can change things. We must testify to our own times. That’s what we’ll be judged on.”

He acknowledges that these are tricky times to testify to. “We are in a difficult historical moment – a time of big confusion. And when you are scared and confused, you tend to look to the past for comfort. So we are seeing a lot of the past in fields of expression.”

It is perhaps unsurprising, then, to hear that Novembre is such a fan of Dubai, which he refers to as a “kingdom of visionary”, pointing to the emirate’s offshore developments as evidence of its forward-thinking attitude.

“Dubai is one of the most contemporary places in the world. It is a kind of utopia. It realised that its greatest asset was its coast and so it decided to expand that coast by building on the sea. It’s so visionary.

“I’ve visited Dubai a few times and I’ve always felt at home there. It is a place for visionaries.

“I’m looking forward to feeling the atmosphere of the city during Design Days Dubai; and seeing people in Dubai showing an interest in design.”

Fabio Novembre will deliver his keynote speech at 7pm on March 13. For more information on the Design Days Dubai speaker programme, visit www.designdaysdubai.ae

sdenman@thenational.ae