Valcucine has realized the Domus Anthology catalogue, a collection of some of its most important projects all over the world. The company took part with its kitchens in some very sophisticated locations such as the Tao Zhu Yin Yuan residential tower in Taipei (Taiwan), Residencia do Carmo in the state of Sao Paulo in Brazil, Bosco Verticale in Milan (Italy), the Cherry Orchard Residence in Moscow (Russia), and many others.

«With the new catalogue “Domus Anthology” – the company explains – we wanted to compile a selection of instances of our design philosophy applied to exceptional projects. A collection of realizations in which architects and interior designers have best interpreted the values, characteristics, and design flexibility of Valcucine while simultaneously meeting the client’s needs in harmony with the spirit of the place».

For each of these residentional locations, Valcucine supplied elegant and performant kitchens. For a house in Bosco Verticale, for example, customers has chosen a composition of Artematica entirely made of glass, a precious, durable, and sustainable material. The choice of a matte finish and a soft color palette, playing with earthy tones and white, creates a soft and muted atmosphere in harmony with the other rooms in the house.

Great satisfaction for Gaggenau, the German luxury brand for professional-grade home appliances, which announced the launch of four new ‘bricks and mortar’ flagship stores and showrooms after a positive year of sales in 2021, closed by the brand with a more than a 10% uplift in sales. Gaggenau will open two flagship stores in Shanghai and Paris. Openings are the openings are scheduled respectively in autumn 2021 and January 2022. They will be the first to feature a brand-new design and concept, created in collaboration with German architecture firm 1zu33. Other showrooms to boast the new concept design are located in Amsterdam launching in September and Brussels at the end of the year.

Each of the new openings will present sophisticated locations and local contexts in their design and architecture. Furthermore, experiential kitchen and living space scenarios will present Gaggenau appliances in a brand new way. Different materials, looks and finishes, which are representative of real-world, sophisticated living environments are supplied through collaborations with likeminded, highly respected brands, including interior wood fittings from Schotten & Hansen, modern furniture from Walter Knoll and lighting installations from Occhio.

The new flagship stores and showrooms will also include immersive private dining spaces, wine bars, and a section dedicated to the brand’s Respected by Gaggenau initiative, celebrating independent artisans and producers in the realms of culinary excellence, viniculture innovation and design. A centrepiece attraction will be ’The Difference’ – a holistic experience, which allows visitors to discover the ethos of Gaggenau.

«It is a record year for Gaggenau – said Peter Goetz, managing director of Gaggenau -. We are seeing growth in all our key markets and now is the time to invest in the brand and create a unique consumer experience that allows us to have a deeper connection with our audience. For architects and interior designers to homeowners and design enthusiasts, the new flagship stores and showrooms will provide an aesthetically inspiring experience, which showcases Gaggenau’s pursuit of culinary excellence. An exclusive sensory space of expertise that complements the consumers’ luxury lifestyle.»

Gruppo Lube has recently opened its stores after the end of the lockdown with two fundamental priorities: Safety and Service. The Italian company mixes these two concepts offering new advantages to its customers. Stores have already been sanitised with ozone and being not large and dispersive shops (a quality choice we made many years ago), it is possible to visit them only on appointment, to avoid large gatherings of people: this means that visitors can have the entire store all to themselves, for a purchasing experience that is not only pleasant and dedicated to them, but also safe. To allow everybody to have this opportunity, Gruppo Lube has introduced longer opening hours, up to ten o’clock in the evening.
«We have always looked after our customers extremely efficiently – they say from the company – from the design phase to the after-sales assistance service.
Faced with such a serious health emergency as the one we have been experiencing over these weeks, our position at Gruppo Lube has always remained the same: we are here. Being here is part of our philosophy, what we call “Being Lube”. This is more than just two simple words, it is our identity, a way of viewing our life, our home and the kitchen. A set of shared and tangible values that take shape in our stores. Italy is about to reopen and our stores will be reopening as well. We want to reassure you by confirming that we have adopted all the basic measures and medical devices to protect everyone’s health.»

Ernestomeda has opened a new flagship store in the capital of South Korea. The new store displays the most popular kitchens of the Italian brand in a space of 200 square meters, located in the prestigious Gangnam district of Seoul. Among the main districts of the city, Gangnam winds south of the Han River and has become one of the richest and most important districts of the South Korean capital in recent decades.
The large exhibition area of the flagship store houses some of the most important

Ernestomeda kitchen models, such as K-Lab, Icon, Soul +, Obliqua and One.
Each of these models are characterized by Italian style, evolved solutions and functionality.
Characterized by alternation of full and empty volumes, K-Lab is a kitchen project with a refined style but with a technical soul, capable of responding to any practical need, without giving up aesthetic component.
Modern and vintage are perfectly mixed, instead, in Soul +, a direct emanation of the Soul model, enriched over time with new elements and materials, expertly mixing contemporary design trends with elements with clear vintage references.

And of course, in the South Korean store Icon could not miss: the iconic Ernestomeda model, which inaugurated the collaboration between the company and Giuseppe Bavuso, now the company’s art director, has been the protagonist of numerous reinterpretations over time. The Icon composition on display in the Seoul store is characterized by suspended bases and columns in heat-treated oak veneer, enriched by the satin steel top and the Flex wall unit in transparent gray glass.

After the openings in Minsk (Bielorussia), Gruppo Lube went on bringing its made-in-Italy style in the world. At the beginning of February, the company took part to the Interior Mebel 2020 in Kiev, the furniture, lighting and décor international exhibition held at IEC, the most modern exhibition centre in the capital of Ucraine.
By visiting the booth at the Pavilion 3 – Stand 1-31, visitors could admire personally two beautiful composition of Luna and Immagina Plus models, as well as discover most of the new finishes of the brand collection.
The new store in Minsk, indeed, attracted the curiosity of many local architects and interior designers on the grand opening day. With a location of over 200 square meters some of the Lube Cucine modern and classic compositions have been displayed, such as Clover, Oltre, Agnese, Pantheon, as well as the highly appreciated contemporary style of Contempo model, from the CREO Kitchens brand collection.
From the second half of 2019 to today, Cucine LUBE has registered dozens of other new mono-brand store openings, including Tbilisi (Georgia), Bratislava (Slovakia), Cluj (Romania), Sofia (Bulgaria), Moscow (Russia), Vilnius (Lithuania).

Paris is the location of the new Cesar flagship store. The Italian brand of kitchens counts now 200 shops in Italy and 170 abroad, with a significant international presence.
The new showroom is located in Boulevard Saint-Germain and reveals the image of the Italian design of Cesar by exhibiting the company’s latest new entries: Intarsio with Rovere Termocotto doors and breakfast bar, Tratto handles and Across worktop lighting and The 50’s in Rovere Corvino, a modern reinterpretation of the 50’s bookcases. Intarsio and The 50’s (both projects by Garcia Cumini) express Cesar’s passion for handcrafted timber and offer top-quality, well-pondered, tailor-made solutions capable of turning the dining and living room areas into integrated parts of an open domestic space. Maxima 2.2 and Unit will also be showcased in the flagship store in Paris. These two models stand out for their accurate details and their finishes that interpret streamlined, rigorous aesthetics and deliver refined, contemporary, design results. In the metallic Acciaio Ossidato lacquered finish with Shaker doors and Eero handles, the Maxima 2.2 tall units (designed by R&D Cesar) confirm their structural refinement and solidity which turn Maxima 2.2 into a timeless planning system offering a variety of combinations in terms of materials, colours and surface treatments. Thanks to the installation of a central island chosen in warm and cosy Fenix Rosso Jaipur laminate, with its soft, stunning shapes, Unit (designed by Garcia Cumini) will be sharing the new store’s showroom with Maxima 2.2.
Cesar’s authoritative partner for this new store opening in Île-de-France is Christophe Heuze. With his strongly-acknowledged experience in the luxury interior design sector, Christophe Heuze has turned out to be the ideal partner to walk with the company along its path towards increasingly greater consolidation in France.

Flex, Pro and Sense are three new kitchens series that Electrolux is launching in the European markets. These names derive from the main feature of the model: flexibility,  precision and assisted cooking. Combining technology with human-centric Scandinavian design, the company has developed a line of Electrolux-branded products comprising a truly intuitive kitchen range, designed to work in harmony with the cook. The Sense series includes ovens enriched with connected features which are compatible with Electrolux European smart kitchen partners, notably Google for voice assistance and the Innit recipe app.
«We’re extremely proud of the new Electrolux kitchen range, which truly puts the needs of the consumer first to offer outstanding experiences around great tasting food. For the past 100 years, Electrolux has improved the everyday life of people in their homes through innovation and superior design. We believe this range is a game-changer – said Anna Ohlsson-Leijon, Head of Electrolux business area Europe. The range will be launched starting in April. Several of the smart, connected appliances will also be shown at the Future Kitchen event, taking place at the Electrolux headquarters in Stockholm on March 21. Electrolux is inviting partners – from startups to retailers and tech giants – to discuss how to create value through the food and kitchen ecosystem.
Innovation is combined with refined aesthetic and attention to detail and ergonomics, making the products intuitive to understand and use.

The new Electrolux series include: hobs, ovens, fridges, freezers, dishwashers and hoods.  Among these, the multi-functional 900 SteamPro oven, with its Steamify feature, automatically combines the right amount of steam and traditional heat for best-in-class baking, roasting and steaming results. The oven is connected and works with the Innit recipe app and can be voice controlled through Google Home for even more intuitive cooking assistance.The Electrolux 900 CookView® oven, instead, has an integrated camera that together with the ‘My Electrolux’ app allows consumers to keep an eye on their food on a mobile device, even while not in the kitchen. The Electrolux 900 SensePro® hob, coming with the world’s first wireless and battery-less food probe, enables perfect results by letting the user simply tell the hob what’s cooking and how they’d like it done.

The Electrolux 700 Hob2Hood® hood, then, wirelessly synchronizes with most Electrolux hobs and is automatically activated when the hob is turned on, adapting the speed of the kitchen fan to the hob’s power settings. Finally, the 2019 iF Design award-winning Electrolux 900 ComfortLift® dishwasher with QuickSelect, features the new intuitive touch slider that only requires one choice to be made, cycle time, and guides the user to the most eco-friendly choice.

It is an important moment in the history of the Italian kitchen company minotticucine, that this year celebrates seven decades of activity with two very important international openings in India. Mombai and New Delhi are the locations of the new stores of the brand, known in the world for its premium models with an elegant but essential style. The Indian openings are part of the Asso Group strategy for the development of minotticucine, that it owns since 2014 and for which has interesting expansion projects worldwide. With the Indian shops, the brand enlarges its presence in Asia and adds two new stores to the already existing ones in different important cities, as Milan, Miami, Seoul, Vienna, London, Barcelona, New York, Stockholm, Vancouver, Athens, Shanghai, Beijing. The brand is recognized for its minimalism typical of the 90s, launched by Alberto Minotti, according to the so called “visual silence”, a style in which shapes are pure and essential, without superfluous elements, and colors are natural, such wood and stone.

Valcucine, Italian company globally renowned for its high-end, eco-sustainable kitchens, continues its international expansion and strengthens its presence in China by opening three new stores in Shanghai, Foshan and Shenzhen. The choice of these locations has been made considering the meaning of any place and the important business occasions it offers.
The new Valcuncine showrooms, in fact, find place in the Shanghai design mall; in Foshan acknowledged as “Pilot City of the United Nations Human Settlements Program”; and in Shenzhen, that is location of the International Art Design Centre (iADC), an exhibition centre covering over 1.5 million square meters, all set to become a reference point for the design and furniture sector in Southern China.
A refined selection of the company’s iconic kitchens and bespoke solutions are showcased at the centre of the showrooms, summarising the extension and versatility of the whole collection. As well as to the showroom space, special attention has also been dedicated in all three stores to the Valcucine Academy: an instructional space designed to offer visitors the opportunity to experience how a kitchen is designed and planned, offering a wide range of finishes in a creative playground that benefits from ongoing technological updates.
These new boutiques have been added to the store in Chengdu, opened in 2015, and the one in Changzhou, opened in 2017, and strengthen this Italian brand’s presence in China.

The Italian elegance of Snaidero, kitchen producer with 72 years of history, arrives to Sydney. The company has inaugurated an important space, designed to be both a retail and contract space, aimed at “top luxury” clients. Exclusive and tailor-made solutions are displayed, in order to show customers the results of the constant investment in research and innovation of Snaidero, that has also collaborated with some of the biggest names in Italian industrial design, such as Pininfarina and Iosa Ghini. Snaidero chose Cubic Interiors for its new Sydney base. This great business partner has been involved in the high-end interior design business in Australia for 70 years, with hundreds of luxury projects realized. In collaboration with Robert Migliorino, the CEO of Cubic Interiors, Snaidero designed this space. The artistic director on the project was interior designer Greg Natale, a big name in Australian design. He designed the spaces to highlight the excellence of Italian design, adapting materials and finishes to appeal to the local target clientèle.
Massimo Manelli, CEO of Snaidero, comments with satisfaction on the project: «Australia is a country with extraordinary opportunities for the Snaidero group. The style, the exclusivity of design, the care for quality and customer service of our brand, have been immediately and constantly appreciated over the years, making us a unique and recognized brand on the Australian market. The Snaidero flagship in Sydney confirms our willingness to invest and to be present reaffirming our leadership, positioning ourselves on a distinctive and excellent range where design, quality and service are an key success factors both in retail and in contract business . This opening represents a further step towards an increasingly international presence.»
The store has fifty linear metres of window display space, that houses eight kitchens, which were carefully selected to represent the very best of the collections made in collaboration with Pininfarina, Iosa Ghini and Marcon.
In the Australian market Snaidero has realized dozens of contract projects over the past 10 years in Melbourne and Sydney.