Milan, Italy
While its rival appliance manufacturers focus intensely on the future of the kitchen, driven by innovation and technology, Gaggenau is using its stand at EuroCucina this year to take a step back in time, recreating a farmyard setting from generations gone by to place the emphasis on working with food to achieve results, rather than simply pressing a touchscreen.
The stand provides a contrast to not only fierce rivals like Miele with its exquisite PureLine range and Electrolux’s extraordinary dual steam oven and sous side appliance, but also with its fellow Bosch group brands. While Gaggenau kneads bread for baking on a stone, stablemate Siemens’ stand carries the tagline, “The future moving in”.
The design concept is the completion of an ambitious 4-year-long trilogy of stands that began at EuroCucina in 2010, when the focus was heavily on technology, continued in 2012 with a balance of technology and nature, and now maturing in 2014 with a unique farmyard aesthetic.
This concept is the work of two Svens: Gaggenau head of brand Sven Schnee and Gaggenau head of brand design Sven Baacke.
“We’re telling a different story here,” Baacke says. “It’s not about the whitegoods industry: it’s about kitchen tools.
“The whole booth is set up like an ancient farmhouse with traditional hand-crafted food where our appliances play a role.
“We have a professional German baker who is doing traditional German bread; Cesare Casella, a Tuscan chef, is doing bruschetta; and we have a winemaker.
Baacke says Gaggenau’s theme for 2014 is ‘Team of Craftsmanship’. Although the appliances at the stand are being deliberately overshadowed, they are still present in this craftwork, especially in the 75-centimetre ovens with a baking stone and the wine cabinetry and refrigeration being used in the viticulture module.
“It’s about crafts, it’s about manufacturing, it’s about handmade things, it’s about ingredients – not many ingredients – but the best ingredients,” Baacke says.
While Baacke is very granular in his approach to Gaggenau’s brand presence, Sven Schnee takes a macro approach. He tells the story of four years ago, when Gaggenau had a 17-metre logo and industrial machines used to grandiously showcase how the company treats steel as a precious material. In 2010, the booth had one steel cube and one wooden cube; a metaphorical transference of industry to nature.
“It has been a trilogy over four years,” Schnee says. “I believe that if you talk about luxury, it’s about emotional or educational impact: I need to touch your soul or your brain, but if I don’t touch you, I don’t get the luxury across to you. I am convinced we need to tell stories that reflect our attitude and our philosophy and then people might buy it.
Schnee says that because you can sell, you must explain first. From this honest explanation comes the connection, he says.
“We do not corrupt our beliefs and our attitudes just in order to be loved by consumers. We are who we are and either you like it or you don’t.”
Gaggenau is distributed in Australia by Sampford IXL.