Alessandro Mendini (b.1931) played an important part in the development of Italian, Postmodern, and Radical design. He was co-founder of Studio Alchymia (with Alessandro and Adriana Guernero) in 1976. He was awarded several international prizes, including the Compasso d’Oro in 1979, 1981, and 2014. In 2011, he was awarded with the title Doctor Honoris Causa of the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan.Read More →
Olivetti’s 1950 Olivetti 22 typewriter became the standard for portable typewriters. Marcello Nizzoli’s Typewriter won the Compasso d’Oro at the 10th Triennale in Rome in 1951. Ettore Sottsass would further develop this design in the 1964 Teckne 3.Read More →
The Studio Alchimia in Milan was founded in 1976 and exhibited its first collection in 1979. Alessandro Mendini’s Proust armchair is one of the most unusual pieces from the Bau.Haus collection. It was made in a small number and individually painted to express the collective’s unease with mass production.Read More →
The halogen bulb is the first new invention to completely transform the lighting industry since Thomas Alva Edison succeeded in creating the incandescent lamp by successfully making a loop of carbonized cotton thread glow in a vacuum for 40 hours.Read More →
He designed furniture and furnishings, lighting for clients including Fargas, Le Cose, Studio Grando, Stilnovo and Evoluzione. He became a member of ADI (Associazione per il Disegno Industriale).Read More →
Marcello Piacentini (1881–1961) was an Italian urban theorist and one of the leading proponents of Italian Fascist architecture.Read More →
He was an apprentice in the studio of Giovan Battista Gianotti, painter, furniture designer, and decorator; in 1921, opened Bot- tega di Pietro Chiesa, Milan; in 1927, (with Gio Ponti, Michele Marelli, Tomaso Buzzi, Emilio Lancia, and Paolo Venini) founded Il Labirinto, which produced high-quality glassware. Read More →
In 1938, Castiglioni and his brother Pier Giacomo Castiglioni set up a studio with Luigi Caccia Dominioni, which closed in 1940. Read More →
Designed and Made in Italy
The Moka Express is a straightforward stovetop coffee maker. It unscrews in the centre, and water is poured into the bottom compartment.
Gino Valle (1923 – 2003) was. Italian architect, designer, and town planner. He was born in Udine. He studied at the Instituto Universitario di Architettura, Venice, to 1948. From 1951, he was at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Read More →
From 1956, Tagliapietra taught glassmaking with Archimede Seguso and Nane Ferro; 1966—68, designed glass for Venini, Murano; until 1968, for Murrina; from 1968, taught glassmaking at Haystack School and Pilchuck School, Stanwood, Washington.
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He worked for various firms in Italy and Yugoslavia. He received a patent for a bookcase-component system. Clients included Ferro & Lazzarini (glassware) and Italianline. He was best known for his lighting in glass and a mushroom-shaped table lamp in marble; became a member of ADI (Associazione per il Disegno Industriale); was author of Venini Glass (1990) and the manager of an art auction house.Read More →
Gillo Dorfles (1910 – 2018) was an Italian art critic, painter, and philosopher. He was born in Trieste and active in Milan.Read More →
He worked in the family firm Ceramica Franco Pozzi in Gallarate from 1951 and redesigned its traditional products in an award-winning Functional style. His widely published 1970 Compact stacking coffee service was designed for machine production in three sizes. He set up his design practice, where clients included Riedel, Rossi, Guzzini, Pierre Cardin, Rosenthal, Norex, La Rinascente department store, and Alitalia. Read More →
He was one of the founders of Alchimia in 1976. He was particularly active in its graphics program Read More →
From cl1880, Zen directed the most crucial furniture workshop in Milan. He was active in the stile floreale, continued after the 1902 Turin ‘Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte Decorativa Moderna’ to be known for his Art Nouveau and Symbolist motifs. He was not a designer himself but instead a factory owner and manager. From 1898, his firm was associated with Haas of Vienna, whose designers included Otto Eckmann. Read More →
From 1977 to 1983, he worked as the chief editor of the design magazine Modo and as a consultant for the fashion magazine Donna. She designed interiors for Driade, Gianfranco Ferré, Montres and GFF Duty Free, Fontana Arte, Granciclismo sports machines, and Morassutti/Metropolis, as well as serving as an image and product consultant for the Croff/Rinascente chain. Read More →
He worked with Marco Zanuso for several years. In 1970, he and Paolo Orlandini collaborated independently for several clients, designing lamps and chairs produced by Artemide and Martinelli Luce.Read More →
Franco Albini’s design work encompassed a wide variety of disciplines, including furniture, interior, and product design, architecture, planning, and museum design. Read More →
She began her professional career in 1967; became a member of ADI (Associazione per il Disegno Industriale); 1967—74, she collaborated with architect and designer Cini Boeri. In 1974, she set up her studio in Milan; participated in the planning of the 1971 industrial design exhibition of ADI at the Design Centre, Brussels.Read More →