As a senior in high school I moved from small town, Kindred, North Dakota, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, with my mom. She had just graduated with her undergrad in Speech Communication and Interior Design and landed a sweet job at a design center called International Market Square to run a high end lighting showroom that sold the products of an Italian lighting firm called Artemide. A couple years later as a poor undergraduate I was hired by the showroom to make copies, file invoices and clean the showroom. It was glamorous stuff, let me tell you. Nevertheless for a couple years I worked there part time and fell in love with the classic lines for which Artemide is famous. Even if you're drawing a blank you most definitely have seen their fixtures in various movies - Tim and I are always pointing them out to each other, especially their iconic Tolomeo table lamp. We have the Micro - it's a little cutie.
So after working in the showroom and acquiring a couple fixtures over the years I always told myself that I would visit an Italian showroom if ever in Italy. There you have it, in Rome I was on a quest to make this visit a reality!
I researched the showrooms and found one that was open to the public. Using my trusty, and by the end of the trip tattered, map of Rome I realized that it would be quite a walk from the hotel. Instead, I decided to try the metro as it would get me pretty close to the showroom and save some time walking in the warm Roman sun. So with my camera in my bag I took a breath and set out towards the closest metro station. I was able to navigate the instructions for purchasing tickets, really very simple, as you had the option of explanations in English (always exciting!). With ticket in hand I made my way down to the train and in minutes was zooming past a handful of stops. I soon hopped off and emerged into a totally new neighborhood full of high end retailers. Yup. This is where an Artemide showroom would be. :) I followed my instructions down one street and then my heart skipped a beat. Just ahead I saw the stylized sign for Artemide Lighting.
I walked up, snapped a photo and peered in through the window. What? It was closed? I consulted my instructions again and decided that this couldn't be the place! It didn't look right and for all the build up was totally anticlimactic. So I walked on a bit and realized that I needed to turn the corner and go around to the flip side of the block. In a mix of confusion and relief I came upon the showroom!
But it was closed! The good news was that it was only closed for the lunch hour/siesta time of the early afternoon. But hey, I was willing to wait so I strolled down the street to take in the Piazza del Popolo which was quite beautiful.
Anxious to get inside the showroom I returned only to be told that they wouldn't be open for another half hour. Sigh! Again I told myself, "you've come all this way and you can wait a half hour even if you don't want to...". With thirty minutes to kill I walked around and looked in the windows of other shops that were still waiting for their proprietors to return.
Alas when I returned this time the showroom was open. For real.
I walked in with goosebumps crawling up my arms and started to absorb everything I was seeing. There were old familiar "modern classic" pieces mixed among a multitude of new fixtures. I hadn't been in an Artemide showroom for a few years so it was amazing to see all the new additions.
I chatted up the showroom manager and we discussed the new fixtures and the old. He gave me some literature including a special design edition (newspaper size but more like a magazine layout) that was printed for an exclusive lighting collaboration that had been showcased in Milan earlier this year. Needless to say I was tickled pink to be visiting an Artemide showroom in Italy. I snapped a few photos and floated out of there on a cloud. :)
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