Can everyday products like kettles and corkscrews be works of art? The answer lies in their design.
What started out as a humble workshop for the processing of brass, nickel and silver sheet metal has now become Italy’s famed factory of design for almost a century now — Alessi.
The design company, founded in 1921, quickly stood out for producing high-quality products, earning it the trust of consumers for many years. Gradually, the company evolved into becoming one of the leading factories of Italian design, continuously applying its expertise and excellence in design management to various types of products for the home.
Furthermore, what has helped Alessi truly stand out in a highly competitive global industry is its openness to change while seamlessly merging it with the company’s traditions and cultural background.
Its commitment to delivering the most advanced expression of international creativity has led it to being often described as the “dream factory.” Making use of its products to make people’s dreams come true, Alessi has been able to provide them with the art and poetry that they seek even for the everyday products that they use.
Complementing this global mindset is Alessi’s openness to work with various artists who share the company’s penchant for merging functionality with the unique.
Here’s a look at the international greats who have lent their design genius to Alessi.
Carlo Alessi.
Carlo Alessi
Carlo Alessi, who studied Technical Design at the Omar Institute of Novara, Italy, also worked in his father Giovanni’s metal workshop in 1921. He was responsible for many of the company’s products in the mid-‘30s until the mid-‘40s, which included popular series like the Ottagonale, Scalini, Cilindrica and Bombe. Carlo eventually became the managing director of the company, bringing it to a new international dimension, paving the way for the company to start working with new external designers. He served as the president of Alessi S.pA. until he passed away in 2009.
Miriam Mirri.
Miriam Mirri
Italian designer Miriam Mirri lives and works in Milan where her office is based. Mirri graduated from Scuola Superiore Disegno Anatomico where she studied Design and at the Università del Progetto where she took up Communication. She then moved to London where she is working as a designer at the Branson-Coates Architecture office.
In 2000, Mirri began her foray as a freelance designer. She designed housewares, pet accessories, day and night objects, watches, complements and furniture. She has won several awards such as the “Fritz Henkel Award for Innovation.”
Philippe Starck.
Philippe Starck
Known as one of the most original and creative designers of our time, visionary Philippe Starck was born in Paris in 1949. His illustrious career has led him to gain many important recognitions such as the Grand Prix National de la Création Industrielle and the Honor Award of the American Institute of Architects.
Starck considers himself as “a Japanese architect, an American art director, a German industrial designer, a French artistic director, an Italian furniture designer.”
Michael Graves.
Michael Graves
Before his death in 2015, Michael Graves taught architecture in Princeton since 1962. Some of the most notable designs of Graves, a native of Indianapolis, include the Portland Building and the Humana Building, the extension of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Newark Museum. He also became famous for creating the bestselling 9093 kettle for Alessi.
Mario Trimarchi.
Mario Trimarchi
An architect of the “freehand” generation, Mario Trimarchi has lived and worked in Milan since 1983. Between 1994 and 1998, Trimarchi served as the director of Advanced Design at the Domus Academy.
In 1999, Trimarchi founded his own Corporate Identity Care studio, Fragile. With Fragile, he designs systems of identity, coordinated image and visual alphabets through which diverse individualities can be expressed.
Trimarchi is currently working on the theme of unstable geometries, which he utilizes within the context of people’s relationships with everyday objects in an attempt to change, however slightly, their habitual patterns of living.
Alessandro Mendini.
Alessandro Mendini
An architect, artist, designer and design manager, theorist and journalist, Alessandro Mendini began his career at the Nizzoli studio.
In 1970, he gave up planning to concentrate on writing about architecture and design and has edited publications such as Casabella, Modo and Domus enabling him to transmit ideas for renewing the world of design. He eventually went back to designing various projects and in 1979 joined the Alchimia Studio.
Among Mendini’s most significant works during this period were the Groningen Museum and the reinvention of the Alessi image for whom he is a meta-projectual consultant. In 1989, he opened the Atelier Mendini in Milan with his brother Francesco and continued his career as a sophisticated, pop designer.
(You may e-mail me at joanneraeramirez@yahoo.com.)