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MANILA, Philippines - Who is the Italian designer best known for the fusion of art and science and award-winning products like the Lola Lamp, the Vitra-Meda chair, Mix LED Lamp?

He was born in Lenno, Tremezzina, Italy, in 1945 and studied at the Milan Polytechnic. Unlike most Italian designers, he studied mechanical engineering instead of architecture and between 1973 and 1979 was the technical director at Kartell, where he was responsible for plastics technology.

Since 1979, he has been a technical design consultant for several companies including Brevetti Gaggi, the coffee machine maker, and Alfa Romeo (1981-1985), the car company.

His rigorous training as a mechanical engineer has prompted him to give priority to construction at the outset of a project rather than the formal aspects of it.  Always concerned with working out new material solutions, he views the boundless possibilities afforded by modern technology as a “supermarket of creative possibilities,” which he knows how to exploit in his designs.

In 1986, he designed Berenice, an elegant and delicate work lamp for Lucepalan, with Paolo Rizzato.  Berenice provides cutting-edge halogen technology while the construction of the lamp arm is based on the legendary spring technology for equalizing countervailing forces developed by George Cawardine in 1933. 

In 1987, he designed a Light chair featuring an inner Normex honeycomb core surrounded by carbon fiber fabric.  He also did the Titania, a pendant lamp with light, ellipsoid housing of aluminum ribs suspended  on nylon cords, which makes it look  as if it is hovering on air. 

Representing the fusion of art and science, reason and imagination, and formal virtuosity that characterize the best of Italian design, he has designed for such companies as Alias, Alessi, Cinelli, Gaggia, Ideal Standard, Luceplan, Mandarina Duck, Omron, Philips, and Vitra.

This applied science background has shaped his recognizable stamp of elegant simplicity, designs that are at once modern in form, organic in appeal.  He was won numerous awards for his designs:  the Compasso D’Oro for the Lola Lamp by Luceplan in 1989; the Design plus prize for the Titania Lamp in 1992; the European Design Prize for his work with Luceplan in 1994; and the Compasso D’Oro for the Metropol lamps series for Luceplan.

Some of his prizewinning works are part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art of Toyama and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

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Last week’s question: Who is the American chef that has propelled the distinctive cuisine of his native Louisiana into the international spotlight, and was one of 12 chefs chosen from around the world to participate in the celebration of Jerusalem’s 3000th anniversary in 1996?

Answer: Chef Paul Prudhomme

Winner: Lorenzo Moran of Project 6, QC