Novacolor promotes "Cultural Sustainability" of design

The 8 September event organised by Novacolor at Theatro hub in Milan to discuss about innovation, relationships and culture, hosted a conversation with the Chinese partner Guangdong Bardese Chemical Co., Ltd, the internationally renowned Italian architect Joseph di Pasquale, author of the iconic Guanzghou Circle with his JDP Architects, and the Chinese Architecture Academy Vice President Mr. Zheng Shaowen.

For more than 35 years, Novacolor has been the Italian brand of San Marco Group dedicated to decorative art with a marked sensitivity to issues of environmental protection. Having become a national and international reference point for architects and designers, the brand has consolidated itself over the years as a testimonial of exchanges and meetings between different cultures, united by the common goal of investing in a design that speaks the language of contamination and sharing. This is the philosophy behind the unstoppable growth of Novacolor and the San Marco Group, which expects to reach a turnover of more than 115 million euros in 2023, becoming a reference point on the international market as the leading Italian company in terms of export share in the paint sector, as demonstrated by foreign sales representing 40% of the turnover.



The appointment promoted on 8 September by Novacolor at Theatro, the hub at the service of designers, where innovation, relations and culture come together, saw a concrete testimony of the fruits reaped from this corporate approach oriented towards the internationalisation of design. At Theatro’s headquarter in Verano Brianza (MB), Novacolor presented the synergy established between interlocutors from the design and from the Chinese markets, including its partner Guangdong Bardese Chemical Co., Ltd, with which it has forged a relationship of collaboration and design over the years. In this regard, Pietro Geremia, President and CEO of San Marco Group, explained:

"The case history represented by the long-lasting exclusive partnership between Novacolor and the Chinese distributor Bardese, demonstrates how an Italian brand can intercept a market of world excellence, initiating a relationship of loyalty based on a careful reading of local culture through the affirmed gaze of Made in Italy. For Novacolor and San Marco Group, being among the leading companies abroad in the decorative wall and floor finishes segment, thanks to an intelligent and attentive approach to the internationalisation of design, is a source of pride and increasingly challenging growth and positioning objectives".

Bardese, leader company in China in the production of building products, with 7 factories to its credit, came to Italy with its team of dealers, architectural firms and decorators to experience a week based on the full expression of cross-cultural contamination. For the decorators, this shared experience coincided with an intensive 5-day training session at the Novacolor Academy in Forlì, the nerve centre of training for the new generation of expert craftsmen. The group of architects and retailers, on the other hand, were able to interface with decorative design through an atelier tour that stopped off at Novacolor's Milan showroom and at the SantaSofia 27 (Milan) and Horm Hub Milano (Lissone - MB) contract furniture showrooms. The natural conclusion of this circuit of meetings and appointments was participation in the Theatro network.

Speaking at the event on 8 September was the Architect and Urban Designer Joseph di Pasquale, one of the leading exponents of the successful symbiosis between Italian style and Chinese culture with his Guanzghou Circle, a Landmark Building inspired by the Chinese tradition, identified by CNN as one of the 10 most interesting buildings of 2014.
With his success story, it was J. di Pasquale, together with JDP Architects, who pioneered and coined the concept of "sustainable culture", which opposes a logic of "export" and instead espouses a principle of "contamination" and "learning" in the processes of internationalisation between different realities:

"For me, the experience in China was a professional and human journey based first and foremost on a cultural level. The fascination of Italy and China is based on the strength of Western beauty and logic on the one hand, and the refinement and depth of Eastern symbolism and thought on the other. All my Chinese projects are not born from a principle of 'exportation' but always in a logic of 'contamination' and 'learning', according to what I have called 'cultural sustainability', the only true sustainability that has value in the times of history. The Guangzhou Circle is not a western project 'exported' to China, but an interpretation of Chinese culture seen through western eyes." - Joseph di Pasquale.

Mr. Zheng Shaowen, vice-president of the "Chinese Architecture Academy - Interior Design Departement" and the "Guangdong Designers Association", also spoke in conclusion. He presented an excursus of Novacolor projects realised in Shantou, Guangdong, China, fully expressing the avant-garde identity of an Italian brand that has become a reference point in the world for a transversal and innovative proposal of decorative furnishing complements.



Inspiration, sharing and active sensitivity are decisive values in the process of enhancing each individual cultural identity. Absorbing to return in the terms of a reinterpretation that is never globalised but always specialised, is the objective that Novacolor, Guangdong Bardese, Architect Joseph di Pasquale and the Theatro hub have concretised in a dialogue that unhinges the schemes of design without frontiers.