The Factory of Italian Design: Alessi
Alessi was founded in 1921 by Giovanni Alessi, a skilled lathe turner from a long line of craftsmen from the nearby Strona valley. During the 1920s and 30s he produced copper, brass and nickel silver tableware and household objects in his workshop in Omegna, a village by lake Orta near Novara.
Design first appeared at the end of 1930s when Giovanni’s eldest son Carlo joined the company. Trained as an industrial designer, he is author of most of the objects featured in Alessi’s catalogue from the mid 30s until 1945, such as the Bombé tea and coffee service, one of the archetypes of the first era of Italian design.
Image: 9090 espresso coffee maker by Richard Sapper, Alessi’s first object to be inducted into the Permanent Design Collection at the MoMA.
In 1970 the founder’s grandson Alberto Alessi join the company. In that very busy decade he lays the foundations for Alessi to become one of the Factories of Italian Design. Alberto is driven by a simple yet revolutionary intuition that the bond between people and objects is not simply shaped by functionality. Men and women have other equally important and deep-rooted needs that form the basis for their relationship with the things they use, such as poetry, emotions, the communication of their identity, their values… Designers are professionals who create functional objects that are capable of capturing the public’s imagination.
Image: Babà multipurpose containers by Stefano Giovannoni
“The Designer is someone with long antennae that need to sense early any change in the times.”
Alessi’s partnership with Stefano Giovannoni begins in the late 1980s, producing many families of commercially successful products, combining design quality with accessibility to a wide public. Giovannoni designed some of Alessi’s best sellers like the stainless steel Mami series, introduced in 1999, opening a new phase in Giovannoni’s work, with the use of a non-plastic material. The turn of the millennium sees the close of the “colourful” period of his first plastic objects because the context had changed, with increasing complexity and economic difficulties. Giovannoni’s desire to go back to steel, a classic, stable and durable material, reflects and responds to this change.
Image: Port basket by Lluís Clotet
“In contrast to the complexity and heaviness of the work involved in architecture, I am attracted to the simplicity and light weight of designs created by our hands, play and irony.”
A member of the School of Barcelona, the work of Catalonia’s Lluís Clotet resists any academic and traditional codification of architectural language. He is a designer true to his time and the search for beauty without dogma. Mainly engaging in architecture, Clotet has also performed a few interesting design projects. His elegant mark is found in the beautiful crinkles of the Foix tray and other “crumpled” objects like the Port basket.
Image: Op-la table/tray by Jasper Morrison
“The super normal object is the result of a long tradition of evolutionary advancement in the shape of everyday things, not attempting to break with the history of form but rather trying to summarise it, knowing its place in the society of things.”
Jasper Morrison’s projects emerge from his awareness that, in the field of household goods, the evolution of types does not occur due to great discoveries, but via small incremental improvements, and is dominated by the imagery of time honoured rituals. His designs for Alessi are characterised by small but significant innovative details, connected to ancient roots.
Image: Fruit Basket tea service by SANAA
The first decade of the 21st century begins with the presentation of the “Tea & Coffee Towers” project, a successor to Alessi’s “Tea & Coffee Piazza” in 1983. This initiative launches a new series of partnerships that spawn genuine mass products, such as those by David Chipperfield, Doriana and Massimiliano Fuksas, Toyo Ito, SANAA, Wiel Arets and Yan Kaplicky. In this decade Alessi’s products reflect the “eclectic” character that had begun to emerge with greater insistence in the second half of the 1990s. The company’s ability to work with new designers — of different nationalities, ages, backgrounds and design approaches — simultaneously is reflected in a collection of objects that are not only different from each other in terms of material or type but also, more profoundly, for their “design language”.
Image: Piana folding chair by David Chipperfield
“In our approach to architecture it is essential to solve problems, identifying issues in every design that stimulate the creation of a form.”
David Chipperfield is a supporter of the concept of continuity. He sees architecture as a tool for innovation understood as constantly seeking to integrate contemporaneity with history and tradition. This aspect is also reflected in his design projects. He designs objects with a “prototypical” character, expressing qualities that are timeless and unique. The fertile exchange between the designer and Alessi has produced a number of interesting projects, such as the Piana folding chair.
Image: Colombina collection tray by Doriana and Massimiliano Fuksas
“Beauty does not exist. Beauty is a usurped category.”
Alessi’s partnership with Doriana and Massimiliano Fuksas dates back to 2003, when they took part in the “Tea & Coffee Towers” research project. The work of Massimiliano Fuksas focuses in particular on the creation of public works and large urban complexes. He works as a designer in partnership with his wife, Doriana Mandrelli, who heads the studio’s design section. Their projects are characterised by a constant search for new materials and production techniques. This sensitivity to materials is seen in the Colombina Collection, a table set with an original combination and juxtaposition of white porcelain, bone china and melamine in different colours.
Image: La Stanza dello Scirocco fruit holder by Mario Trimarchi
“Design is an innocent way of feeling a little bit closer to the mistery of beauty.”
Sicilian-born Mario Trimarchi has lived and worked in Milan since 1983. His work always ranges freely within the visual universe, encompassing drawing, photography, design and image as facets of the same investigative territory. Stories, children’s tales, literary images, and fragments of architecture inspire his work as a designer. These inspirations are obvious in the objects designed for Alessi, such as the La Stanza dello Scirocco series, born out of a memory of his childhood in Sicily.
Discover other Alessi’s collaborations with designers such as Michele De Lucchi, Philippe Starck, the Campana brothers and many more registering to Design2taste now.
