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Ross Lovegrove Stereo Speaker to Launch in Milan

The speaker is the result of a collaboration with KEF Audio.

Meaghan O'Neill -- Interior Design, 4/6/2007 12:00:00 AM

When audio technology and research company KEF Audio wanted to create the world’s most extraordinary speaker, they turned to the man they found to be the world’s most extraordinary industrial designer: Ross Lovegrove. The duo collaborated to create the curvaceous, cutting-edge Muon speaker, which will be unveiled during Milan Design Week, which coincides with contemporary furniture fair Salone Internazionale del Mobile, on view April 18-23. The speaker will make its debut at an exhibit at the Sala del Cenacolo in the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia, April 19-23.

The “Muon” exhibition, designed by Lovegrove and art director Mark Farrow, aims to engage the senses. In addition to the oversized speakers’ acoustical prowess, their mirrored surfaces will also amplify the 18th century frescoes that adorn the hall, creating what Lovegrove calls a “liquid experience.”

At nearly seven feet tall, these loudspeakers are as much sculpture as they are acoustic machinery. Inspired by the abstract sculptures of Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, their form is the result of design aesthetics and the physics of sound. Fabricated from super-formed aluminum which has a similar molding process to vacuum forming, the manufacturing process uses malleable sheets of heated aluminum to achieve “otherwise impossible” shapes.