Giulio Iacchetti
Magis is not a factory, it is a monastery. In that place, form and design are worshiped and venerated. The very architecture does not leave room for any misleading interpretations regarding its real purpose: the four austere wings of the building are gathered around a central cloister in which to meditate on one’s design errors, or on the hope that a product will be accepted into the collection. Numerous designers apply to be admitted to the fold, but only a very limited selection pass the exacting exam set by the Abbot (whose worldly name is Eugenio Perazza), famous for judging the authenticity and value of a vocation in the blink of an eye. Those who ask the reason for such rigour can find the answer by paying a visit to the chapterhouse, where all the pieces from Magis’ past, present and future collections are housed. The light emanating from that space, which springs from a collection of such exemplary and accomplished objects, immediately conveys the fact that Magis is an outpost of quality, surrounded by the barbarism of apathetic and lazy industrial productions, and that its mission is to preserve and hand down the value of ideas and research, to a production world increasingly devoted to easy copies, overstatement and bad taste.