Designing homes and Ferraris is all in a day’s work
Italian firm Pininfarina sets up Dubai base to offer cutting-edge architectural design
Now you can get your dream home or office in Dubai conceived by the same Italian design firm behind generations of legendary Ferrari models and many others besides. Pininfarina, which traces its auto design origins to the late 1920s, has opened a Middle East office in Dubai with the aim of lining up oneof-a-kind buildings.
Two clients have already signed up — the “Innovation Centre” that will be part of the Dubai Sustainable City development in Dubai, and another a villa for a resident.
“It’s still the case that our automotive designs make up 50 per cent of the business, but within the other 50 per cent, the architectural design practice is growing in prominence,” said Paolo Pininfarina, chairman. “It’s only a case of stretching our design expertise to new canvases.”
The firm — which in 2015 was acquired by India’s Tech Mahindra Group — has a handful of trophy projects in its portfolio, such as the air traffic control tower for the new Istanbul airport, the headquarters for a Chinese conglomerate, and another in Brazil. And all of them have won their fair share of mentions in recent global architectural awards.
“These will be completed by 2018-19 ... we feel the time is opportune for the firm to develop associations in Dubai beyond what we are known for in automotive circles,” Pininfarina said.
Innovation Centre
In terms of profile building, the project at Dubai Sustainable City — where just about every bit of its build-up and beyond has been anchored on doing things differently — will come in handy. The Innovation Centre is to house businesses that will have sustainable or renewable energy solutions as their main calling. The facility will also house a conference centre and serve as a hotbed for a trending industry.
Dubai’s real estate development market has been fertile ground for legendary architects and their firms, the late Zaha Hadid (The Opus at Business Bay being one) and Hazel Wong (the creative behind the Emirates Towers design and currently associated with an ongoing Palm project). And then there’s UK’s Foster + Partners with its ICD Brookfield Place at DIFC.
“Over the years we have made calculated steps to go in beyond our interests in automotive,” said Pininfarina. “That meant designing yachts, interiors and, quite naturally, starting the architectural practice. And in recent years, the size of our architectural line has been growing significantly. With all this going on, Dubai was the obvious place to be in.
“That doesn’t mean we are going slower on auto designs — we just had two concept cars at the Geneva Motor Show and that was just two weeks ago.” (The Geneva showcases were the H600, for Hong Kongbased Hybrid Kinetic Group, and the Fittipaldi EF7 Vision Gran Turismo, done in alliance with the Indy 500 champ Emerson Fittipaldi.)
Not that only recent history defines whatever Pininfarina stands for in automotive. A glance through its portfolio will set the record straight — the Ferrari 4WD is there and so is the Maserati Quattroporte Sport GT. And if it is vintage, nothing gets better than the Ferrari Testarossa.
Chairman of Pininfarina