Objects and Frequencies: Bottone in Zagreb

For three days in September, Holographik Space belonged to Bottone. The Berlin brand brought selected works, new colours and two objects that have not been released anywhere yet, and built a room where the furniture, the sound around it and the people in it were all part of the same thing. It was called Objects and Frequencies, and it was the first time Bottone showed in Croatia.

Who they are

Bottone was founded by brothers Michele and Daniele Luciano Ferrazzano. Daniele is an industrial designer and leads the creative side of the brand. Michele comes from industrial engineering and business, and runs strategy and operations.

The roles are clear at the start of a project and much less clear once the work begins, with Michele staying involved as a sparring partner throughout. Being brothers means the conversation is direct. They challenge each other, disagree openly, and treat that tension as part of the method rather than a problem to manage. The point where both of them believe in something is usually the point where it starts to feel like Bottone.

The name is Italian for button, an object whose function is to connect two things. It suits them. German precision and Italian playfulness, design and music, one brother and the other.

Where it came from

Bottone did not appear overnight. It grew out of Studio DLF, the studio Daniele founded in 2009 and that Michele later joined as a partner, working across interior and product design. Many of those interior projects needed furniture that did not exist yet, so the studio designed it. Over the years that produced an archive of pieces that had already lived in real spaces and worked there.

At some point the question became what would happen if those pieces were taken out of their original context, developed further and given an identity of their own. Rather than turning old furniture into a catalogue, the brothers spent 2023 building Bottone as an independent brand with its own manifesto, visual language and cultural world, then expanded the collection with new objects. In 2024 it appeared publicly for the first time through a pre-launch at VooSpace in Berlin, followed by the official launch during Milan Design Week.

Objects and frequencies

Every Bottone object arrives with its own original music track, produced by the brothers themselves, who have been making music together since the nineties. The object always comes first. Once its identity is settled, they translate it into sound. The track is not a description of the furniture. It carries the character, the proportions and the material into another frequency.

With the Zooom Rug the idea becomes physical. You can lie on the object while its track plays, feeling the weight and texture of it under you while you are inside the sound written for it. The object has a physical presence and its frequency creates an invisible layer around it. Together they make one experience, which is where the title of the exhibition comes from.

What the work looks like

Two influences sit at the centre of the design. From Bauhaus and German design culture comes clarity, construction and the principle that every detail should have a reason to exist. From Italian Postmodernism comes colour, boldness and humour, and the reminder that a functional object can have a personality. Bottone lives in the tension between the two. Technically precise without being cold, expressive without decoration for its own sake.

The materials are aluminium, steel, wood and textile, usually left recognisable rather than disguised, so construction becomes part of how a piece looks. Everything is produced in Europe in small batches. The objects are made to be lived with for a long time, functional enough to disappear into everyday use, distinctive enough that you never stop noticing them.

Three days in Zagreb

Wednesday opened with a Design Talk in collaboration with soba.hr, where Michele and Daniele presented the brand and the thinking behind it to a room of designers and architects, followed by the exhibition opening. Thursday the showroom stayed open all day. Friday closed the run with a live DJ set and BOTTONE × HOLOGRAPHIK visuals, and a cocktail made for the occasion.

Among the pieces on show were the Hold TV Stand and the Hold Wardrobe, both unreleased, seen in Zagreb before anywhere else.

Bottone did not try to neutralise the room and turn it into a showroom. They entered into a dialogue with it, which is the reason the collaboration made sense from the first conversation.