Inga Sempé on Imperfection: A Designer's Rebellion at Triennale Milano

French designer Inga Sempé presents "La casa imperfetta" (The Imperfect House) at Triennale Milano's Design Platform, running until September 15, 2024. The exhibition transforms 150 square meters into a faux apartment—complete with entry, bathroom, living room, bedroom, study, and kitchen—featuring objects she has designed over the past 23 years. Walls are covered in a fabric she designed for Kvadrat. Sempé, daughter of illustrator Jean-Jacques Sempé and painter Mette Ivers, rejects the label "cool" and perfection in design, preferring flaws and slight crookedness. Her favorite piece in the show is the Île w153 lamp for Wästberg, which combines a clamp and flat base with a magnetic sphere for directional light. She emphasizes the practical origins of her techniques: pleating (used in lamps for Luceplan, Hay, and Moustache) stiffens soft materials, while matelassé anchors fabric to padding. Sempé credits her artistic upbringing for normalizing drawing and prototyping, and notes that Italian manufacturers like Edra and Cappellini launched her career. She speaks Italian and completed internships in Milan.