Creative dialogues, conferences, a book: Renault approaches Milan Design Week by structuring a kind of symposium around the culture of the car-object. From the design path linked to the latest innovations, to the relationship between past and present, to a debate on the book ‘R4. Da Billancourt a Via Caetani’, which investigates the vicissitudes of the historic car up to the Moro kidnapping. In three encounters, between 7 and 12 April, a more articulate and complex range of ideas is outlined than a single, classic event. Three leading figures in the design world of La Spezia – Laurens Van den Acker (head of the group’s style department), Gilles Vidal (who directs design for the Renault brand) and Sandeep Bhambra (in charge of concept cars) – will animate the reflections, plus the intriguing contribution of one of the world’s best-known French designers, Ora Ïto.
The latter begins: “I really enjoy living in Milan these days, I’ve been coming specially for twenty-five years and this time for a very special occasion”. He shows off the R17 whose restomod he designed, inspired by two examples provided by the official Renault The Originals collection: “One blue, one brown. I took the second colour because I wanted an almost “production” effect. As it was a one-off, I didn’t aim for colour exaggeration, as I could have if there had been more units in different colours. In any case, I personally detest matt cars and wanted a shiny finish from the outset. ‘I too am delighted to be here, it reminds me of the time when I started working in car design in Italy, in Turin,’ Van den Acker adds. ‘Being able to celebrate our quest for style in this context, also representing it through the latest R4, is a source of enormous satisfaction’.
Shortly afterwards, Vidal emphasises, among other things, how much the generous customisation possibilities of the newborn correspond to the variety of proposals that the design of utility products gives to each individual: a “human” element of variety thus emerges, alongside the “technical” authenticity of a small crossover that focuses on functional content inherent in its own nature. Finally, in his talk, Bhambra talks about retro-futurism, collaborations with universes far removed from the automobile, and boundaries that prototypes can circumvent.
