After his initial meeting with Minotti, Hannes Peer did not hear back from the Italian furniture manufacturer for two years. But he wasn’t being ghosted. “I only understood afterwards that their selection process takes that long — to let someone inside the magic circle.” The South Tyrol–born architect, who had built a reputation for opulent interior projects and for custom furniture and lighting that walked the line between art and design, would benefit from his patience. At the 2024 Salone del Mobile, he introduced a 22-piece collection with the brand.
For Minotti, the launch also represented a historical departure. For a quarter century, until his death in 2023, Rodolfo Dordoni had helmed the brand’s art direction. While Dordoni had worked with outside talents, including Nendo and GamFratesi, Hannes Peer was completely new to the table — and he turned out to be the most prolific of the roster that contributed to the 2024 novelties. He kicked off the partnership with an NDA that would keep his collaboration secret: Monday was “Minotti Day” for Peer, who would disappear from his busy studio to workshop ideas with the family-owned company. “We would always have our sketchbooks right next to us,” he recalls. “There is a flow of ideas; you grasp the flow and put it on paper. Roberto Minotti is such a good sketcher — I’m not bad myself — and we were sketching non-stop, during breakfast, lunch, dinner.”
The ’70s as Starting Point
Peer’s conceptual references span the world of architecture and design — he cites Gae Aulenti, Nanda Vigo, Vladimir Kagan and Angelo Mangiarotti as inspirations — as well as art and fashion. He feels an affinity for Isamu Noguchi, Piet Mondrian and Yves Saint Laurent. The latter introduced Mondrian’s colour blocking to cocktail dresses in the 1970s — and that special trio of YSL, Mondrian and the utopian ambitions of that particular decade has special resonance for Peer. The first suite in his collection for Minotti was the expansive Yves seating series, which features a seam detail that recalls haute couture tailoring. “Then we spun it even further,” Peer says. “Wherever the vertical stitching would almost reach the floor, it would meet a wonderful double torus, or doppio toro in Italian.”
Featuring conventional sofas, open-end units, chaises longues and lounge sofas with curvaceous voids where a round ottoman or circular side table could be comfortably nested, the Yves system introduces an organic language to Minotti. “Softness is not immediately translatable in perfection. And Minotti is famous for this incredible perfection. For them, it was unprecedented,” Peer explains. “They were used to a certain classical and quote-unquote masculine shape, which I absolutely adore. But I said, ‘Let’s play with it.’” That play resulted in 300 catalogue pages of variations in which the sofa landscape takes shape.
Architecture unto Itself
After the Yves sofa, the manufacturer threw Peer a curveball. “They were longing for a design that would be a stand-alone piece, which is very un-Minotti. They were always about cohesiveness and almost a ‘total look.’ But they were asking me for a design that would be cohesive within the Minotti world, but at the same time could be a very strong editorial piece that could adorn the most beautiful magazines in the world and stand by itself.” Peer, who had studied at the Politecnico di Milano and worked for Rem Koolhaas, set out to envision something distinctly architectural. “For me, it all comes from architecture and goes back to architecture. You can consider my furniture micro-architectures. They always relate to the surrounding context.”
First in this next series is the Nico table, with its attention-grabbing base made of two interlocking marble elements shaped like an S and an L. (That motif reappears, in a bigger and bolder way, in the Janis screen.) “With such
relatively simple forms, I was able to create such a sculptural piece. It’s minimalist on one side, but it’s very sculptural on the other.”
A Shared Connection
Among the collection’s other pieces, the Emmi armchair and the Drake coffee
table achieve a delicate Noguchi-esque balance. Emmi’s seat and Drake’s top
feel as if they’re floating on their frames, evoking the Sistine Chapel’s almost-
touching fingers, to borrow an art-world metaphor that Peer loves (“Michelangelo literally invented abstract art when he decided to not finish the Pietà.”)
Emmi would turn out to be his favourite piece, and it epitomizes a working
relationship three years in the forging. “With Emmi, I truly feel that Minotti had to take the biggest leap to move towards me. And I had to make the biggest effort to move towards Minotti. It’s very different from the brand’s original DNA, but it is also so, so, so Minotti.” It required 15 prototypes to perfect its dual nature of daring sculpture and tailored furnishing. “I like to flip it upside down to show the under-structure and how sophisticated it actually is to make it seem so effortless.”
Hannes Peer on His Monumental Collaboration with Minotti
Since starting at Minotti as a covert agent, Hannes Peer has emerged as the company’s leading creative force.