During Salone del Mobile in Milano 2026 week, minotticucine and Claudio Silvestrin present etherea, a kitchen that looks forward—far forward—anticipating the design of the next two decades and the architecture of the new century. Discover more.
Etherea Kitchen – Design Inspired by Nature
In 2004, minotticucine and Claudio Silvestrin disrupted design paradigms with the terra model, the first kitchen in the world entirely made of natural stone—a timeless work, like all of Claudio Silvestrin’s architecture and projects. In 2018, Claudio’s creative spirit, together with the synergy with minotticucine by the asso group and the same bold innovation, introduced cast bronze, transforming the terra monolith into a perfect synthesis of art and function.
After exploring the materiality of stone and the alchemy of bronze, today, during Salone del Mobile in Milano 2026 week, minotticucine and Claudio Silvestrin present etherea, a kitchen that looks forward—far forward—anticipating the design of the next two decades and the architecture of the new century. At first glance, etherea surprises: its innovative beauty challenges our conventions and visual expectations.
For etherea’s form, Claudio Silvestrin drew inspiration from “ether”, the fifth vital element according to Plato, and from the forms of Mother Nature. Right angles disappear, giving way to soft, continuous movements that follow energy flows, the smoothness of water, and air currents. The island’s joints transform into veined lines, following a natural, harmonious rhythm, creating a kitchen shaped by the very laws of nature.
The tall unit doors lose their traditional static presence, becoming fluid lines that conceal kitchen functions and merge aesthetics with technology in a continuous, harmonious gesture. At the center of each door, a source point evokes the origin from which invisible energies flow, introducing movement and life to the surface.
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Corian, a Bridge between Vision and Function
The material, Corian, chosen with both poetic and technical awareness, becomes a bridge between vision and function. It is a solid, moldable surface that enables visual suspension without reducing the practicality of the worktop and doors. Moldable and thermoformable, it allows continuity between worktop, doors, and island, dissolving the boundaries between surface and volume, making etherea appear like a suspended stone or a meteorite floating in space.
Claudio Silvestrin intends to de-materialize the kitchen object, making it ethereal in an almost natural beauty, beyond linear time, free from the coldness and rigidity of machinery, where matter and form merge in a weightless harmony. In the etherea kitchen, Corian is not merely a technical material—it is the tangible manifestation of an artistic vision, capable of suspending time and liberating the visual experience, slowing perception and freeing the object from its immediate materiality, returning it to a deeper awareness.
etherea does not belong to any specific time; it seems shaped by invisible forces, simultaneously ancient and futuristic, an object that transcends past and future, suspended in the very essence of its being.
Text and Photos: minotticucine by asso group
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