presented at GALLERIA ROSSANA ORLANDI
Year / 2016
Magnetica is a pendant lamp that combines LED technology and permanent magnets. Two bodies machined from blocks of solid aluminium, one polished and the other lacquered in matt black, are supported exclusively by the force of attraction of magnets at the extremities. The constant magnetic field thus generated gives the lamp a sense of lightness, making it susceptible to external vibrations. The part containing the LED produces a spotlight, that becomes a diffuse glow when close to the upper body mirror. Magnetica, instead of a conventional lamp, can be defined as a kind of installation that invites reflection both on space and light. The project was born last September for the cultural exhibition Design Pinetum 02 Innesti (Grafts), curated by Bruno Boretti, Silvia Fabbroni, Laura Moretti and Guido Pellegrini: a biennial of design interventions alternated with works of artists in residence, designed to be inserted in the beautiful setting of the seventeenth-century Villa Gaeta and in its nineteenth-century arboretum in the Pinetum of Moncioni in Chianti (Tuscany). Its success has convinced LUCE5, the company that made the prototypes, to produce the lamp in a series.
Manufactured / LUCE5
Collaboration in the Project / Andrea Signoretto
Photo / Francesca Ferrari
Year / 2016
S2 model will be, is inspired by Thonet Program 209 characterized by the sinuous frame of steamed solid bentwood. The S02 chair is made with pieces CNC that are cut, hand-welded from 10 mm thick iron slabs and finally painted in grey.
Michael Thonet revolutionized the concept of the woodwork in the Victorian era, by inventing the "bentwood furniture", and in the same way the VARIAZIONIDIFERRO collection will attempt to renew the traditional production of furniture in metal profiles and the way in which they are designed and built. To cut and assemble metal parts, using hand-welding according to the book, allows the generation of indeterminate variations with similar results to other manufacturing techniques, such as three-dimensional printing or investment casting.
Collaboration in the Project / Carolina Martinelli
Year / 2016
The project illustrates the first results of the research conducted during 2015 by Vittorio Venezia and Carolina Martinelli on the manufacture of the vases of Caltagirone, assisted by Andrea Branciforti, a local designer who has been coordinating for years a wide network of neighborhood craftsmen in the production of high quality items. The tradition of terracotta in this town in the Sicilian hinterland is very old and this is confirmed by its name of Arabic origin Qal'at al Ghiran, or "Cliff of vases". Thanks to the abundant availability of raw material and the skill of generations of craftsmen, this territory has succeeded, over the centuries, in gaining the distinction of "The city of Ceramic". Many do not know that Caltagirone is actually made up of two towns within the city. On the tops of three hills adjacent to the chain of Erei stands the historical and tourist centre, with its famous staircase surrounded by numerous workshops specialized in the decoration of ceramics; downstream – more than five kilometres away – is placed, instead, the industrial district. This was born in the Sixties when the growth of the exportation demand for pieces of great value encouraged the development of small companies, mostly family owned, suitable for the production of standardized items in large numbers. Unfortunately, in recent years, the heavy economic crisis and international competition have led to the marginalization and impoverishment of the entire production area. Although there are still many master craftsmen who perpetuate the tradition, almost all industries are empty and the presses and ovens are turned off. This place has become the basis of a project that tells precisely of this duality and this rift between city- craftsmanship world and the industrial world, attempting in some way to bridge this gap.
The result is a family of ceramic containers that combine a mass production system with a manual manufacturing. In particular, they are composed of two halves: the lower parts are constituted by classic vases made with the mould, standardized, on which are overlapped forms made using the lathe, always different because they are manually crafted and because they are designed as constant variations of traditional techniques, decomposed and recomposed in unusual iconographies. Thus, the objects realized are not an end in themselves, but they represent an excuse to tell a story, spaces, reflections and to rediscover a tradition that is taken for granted and that, instead, it can be an inexhaustible source of originality. Our contemporary can again originate from our neighbourhood, so why not start it right from Caltagirone? From a small site on a small street, where artisans are masters in shaping the material with traditional techniques that when remixed and concentrated in a new project can become unusual and innovative.
Credits
Project by / Carolina Martinelli and Vittorio Venezia
Coordinate Manufactured / Andrea Branciforti
Client / Falper
Year / 2013
In 2013, the project won the Cristalplant Design Contest, which then resulted in the successful "Controstampo" collection for Falper. The collection includes a washbasin and a bathtub
Project Team / Dario Gaudio, Vittorio Venezia
Photo / Falper
4decimi WINNER OF DESIGNREPORTAWARD2015
Year / 2015
4decimi is a collection of twelve pendant steel lamps, inspired by the sculptural simplicity of metal containers and traditional tools of western Sicily. Each light fitting is hand-cut, curved, bent and welded by eighty-six years old craftsman Nino Ciminna in the oldest workshop of via Calderai. 4decimi is one part of the OfficineCalderai project which also includes Ferro collection.
Collaboration in the Project / Carolina Martinelli
Production / Nino Ciminna
Photo / Angelo Cirrincione, Carolina Martinelli
Client / Internoitaliano
Year / 2014
A watering can made of bent sheet metal and welded adopting one of the oldest handicraft techniques used by “lo stagnino”, a traveling handyman specialized in welding. Idro is designed to be an environmentally-friendly, “green” object in every aspect: function, construction, form. Completely handmade, Idro’s flared top is useful for collecting rainwater.
Project Team / Giulio Iacchetti, Vittorio Venezia
Production / Nino Ciminna
Client / TobeUs
Year / 2012
"I like stories that begin with a piece of wood"
A toy designed for Matteo Ragni's 100%TobeUs Collection
Photo / Max Rommel
Client / PPP burger
Year / 2015
Location / Palermo, Italy
Inspiring source of the atmosphere of this restaurant are the braziers laboratories (Officine Calderai), a historical and reference place for all the inhabitants of Palermo where you can still see skilled craftsmen who perpetuate an ancient tradition of this city. Processing techniques and welding of metal, usually aimed at the production of artifacts useful to everyday life - boilers (or quarare in Sicilian dialect, from which originates the name of the street), cauldrons, trays, cruets, etc. - have been used here to make lamps, tables, chairs, racks, window and door fixtures. Each element - from the tray on which they served sandwiches, to lamps, to hand basin, etc. - is specially designed and is different from the others. They are unique pieces, like all products in this street of Palermo. In particular, the seven lamps above the counter, handmade and tin, have all different forms. The interior design of the PPP Burger - a hamburger fast food restaurant who interprets the quintessential American street food with ingredients sourced entirely Sicilian - thus combining a strong local identity with international aspects. The space is designed as a single environment, where only a long counter divides the areas of work and consumption, so that the customer is fully involved in the experience of preparing food and beverage. The entrance door, a double folding door, according to different seasons or needs, can be opened partially or completely in order to transform the interior into an exterior and vice versa. Even in the winter days, the large windows allow a visual continuity between inside and outside. The materials and colors used combine a strong industrial and handcrafted style: the lighting system, draft beer system and the taps of the sinks are made of galvanized steel pipes in view; furniture - stools, tables, counter, racks - are made of wood and rusted iron; material, the latter, also used for doors and window frames; gray walls and floors recall the concrete; while the bathroom walls are covered in chalkboard
Project Team / Carolina Martinelli, Vittorio Venezia
Production / Enzo Zerbo Fabbro, Giana Costruzioni, Matranga Falegnameria, Nino Ciminna Artigiano
Photo / Angelo Cirrincione
Client / Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Parigi
Year / 2013
Terracotta vases inspired by extrados domes. The dome is a curvilinear or polygonal vault geometrically generated by rotation of a curve around a vertical axis. Originally used by Romans, the domes - spherical, hip, umbrella, extrados, with or without eye - never ceased to be built becoming a typical element of Italian city skyline
Project Assistant / Giorgio Laboratore
Client / Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Parigi
Year / 2013
Notes, drawings and models inspired to Italy for Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Paris. Once upon a time Grand Tour used to bring people all the way throughout Italy to the deep south, Sicily. Nowadays, I’d like to think that I have done a similar journey but pointing north, all the way to Paris. My aim in fact is to draw and design and sometimes event to craft objects myself. I much prefer the ones that can be used for some purpose and thus I am called a designer. During my residence in Paris at the Italian Institute I was asked to design an Italian merchandising family. I started my research trying to define a project with a strong and direct link to Italy, to Italian culture, sot that it could be a synthesis of the "Bel Paese". The project here presented is the un-coordinated array of objects inspired by Italy. Rather than finished items I like to describe them as travel notes. I conceived them as un-coordinated as they are born from different methodologies: some are formal quotation, others come from simple sensations, perception of different materials or the manipulation of familiar objects. I like to design working on indirect memories such as the roll while moving on the Lagoon in Venice; the chimneys in a painting by Giorgio De Chirico; the big domes in Turin, Florence and Rome; a moka coffee maker; wood grain; a clothes peg… and the list could continue forever. Travel notes. The focus of this project was to steal symbol of the Italian culture re interpret them and transform them into simple object that try to convey a memory, a distant echo of belonging somewhere. Some of the objects I designed have been developed with craftsmen and artisans in different Italian cities and with different expressions. The glass, for instance, is made in Vicenza, the toll in Palermo, the sun glasses in Sorrento, marble is from Comiso. Other objects have been rapid prototyped, they create undefined forms, representative of one single idea. I love to call this approach un-coordinated as it attempts to harness and metabolize all the slight differences and sensations of such unique a culture that can only be described as Italian
Project Assistent / Giorgio Laboratore
FERRO WIN 1th PRIZE DESIGNREPORTAWARD2015
Year / 2015
Inspired by the brazier grills still manufactured in the workshops of renowned via Calderai in Palermo, Ferro is a furniture and accessories collection. The product family includes five seats, a table, six flowerpot holdersand a doorstop. Each piece is CNC cut from 5 and 10 thick iron slabs and hand welded by one of the youngest blacksmiths of the steet. Ferro is one part of the OfficineCalderai project which also includes 4decimi collection.
Collaboration in the Project / Carolina Martinelli
Photo / Angelo Cirrincione, Carolina Martinelli
Client / Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Parigi
Year / 2013
Glasses walnut, handmade.
Project Assistant / Giorgio Laboratore
Client / ITF
Year / 2009
Modular bookcase made from a metal sheet bent
Project Team / David Dolcini, Vittorio Venezia
Photo / PlusLab
Exhibition / Archeologie dal futuro
Year / 2014
Location / Associazione Flavio Beninati, Palermo, Italy
Opera Incompiuta is a work produced for the exhibition Archaeology of the future, curated by Gianni Pedone and Manfredi Beninati. The designers invited were asked to produce an object that, once found in the future, would be able to tell our present. Carolina Martinelli and Vittorio Venezia exhibited a brick, an object that has value in itself, but which, at the same time, can be also interpreted as a ruin of a more complex work (infrastructure, building, furnishings). The solid brick belongs to the tradition, is solid and durable in the future. Its core is carved with an incision that is reminiscent of brick stamps imprinted on the ancient Roman brick, despite being made with a contemporary technology, the water jet cutting. The inscription bears the date of the day on which the work was created, so that any archaeologist of the future can easily decode, and written Opera Incompiuta (Unfinished Opera). This phrase expresses both the incompleteness of the testimony emerged and the particular historical moment in which we are living, characterized by many projects, industrial product or architecture, which remain only drawings or that are interrupted before their completion. Opera Incompiuta is an ornament that every politician should keep on his night table.
Project Team / Carolina Martinelli, Vittorio Venezia
Exhibition / Design nel pallone
Year / 2013
Location / Sao Paulo, Brazil
Reinterpretation of the famous football Super Santos for the exhibition "Design nel Pallone", curated by Francesca Molteni and Giulio Iacchetti. In the eternal soccer games that seemed to never end, I remember the Super Santos chiming in every goal the passage of time, with his unmistakable thud of metal on the shutters. This noise was contained in joy and pain: not only represented the sound of the goal, but most likely would have aroused the hatred of the neighbors, who regularly threatened to puncture the balloon so loved. I tried then to design a sphere impossible to drill, an elastic structure outside that could never lose its shape, inspired by the lines that characterize the Super Santos. Prototyped sintered nylon and sheets PPL cut and riveted
Photo / Miro Zagnoli
Workshop / Abadir
Year / 2012
Workshops in food design about the reinterpretation of the traditional icicle. The objective of the study was to explore the various phases of the project, from the development of a concept to the realization of the model, all starting from a common theme, namely that of icicle as "form supported by a stick". Design a new form of ice is also a way to practice on changes, or those slight deviations from the classical form that result in countless variations
Concept / Massimo Tepedino, Vittorio Venezia
Tutor / Giorgio Laboratore, Andrea Signoretto
Photo / Andrea Signoretto Hand / Giorgio Laboratore
Workshop / Abadir
Year / 2014
Workshop in food design. The objective of the workshop was to explore the various phases of the project, from the development of a concept to the realization of the model, all starting from a common theme, namely that of chocolate as a "form of chocolate." Design a new form is also a way to practice on changes, or those slight deviations from the classical form that result in countless variations
tutor / Giorgio Laboratore
Workshop / Abadir in collaboration with Centro Ricerche Fiat
Year / 2014
First phase of the course in car design, developed in collaboration with the Centro Ricerche Fiat
Concept / Gianni Pedone, Vittorio Venezia
Project Team / Anna Crocellà, Gianluca Campo, Sarah Borinato, Laura Mercurio, Margherita Pappalardo
Client / Meritalia
Year / 2008
Polyurethane armchair. Different sheets of water-cut foam are glued together and then covered with a rubber spray coating
Photo / Meritalia
Competition / Promosedia International Design Competition, Honourable Mention
Year / 2012
The concept underpinning Vinavil is exasperation of glue bonding processes. The idea that characterizes the chair is the breakdown of the work in its individual parts. The elements of the chair cut separately are recomposed into a single harmonic form. Vinavil is made of birch veneer glued curved and finished with transparent acrylic paint
Client / Alcantara
Year / 2012
Exhibition / MAXXI, Rome, Italy
A furniture system designed for Alcantara's project Shape your life. The Alcantara has been used in different ways and in different finishes; fabric, embossed, laser-cut, quilted, try to rebuild the striped fabrics reminiscent summer. The sea as a room in the house. Isola project is the design synthesis of this image. The deck becomes a bed under a starry ceiling, the umbrella a lamp that modulates through a manual dimmer sunlight, the shield a wall to hide behind and the wicker a comfortable armchair. The key theme of all these projects is the variability. The objects are transformed to meet the needs of those who use them. Feeling at home also means being able to feel the control of the space around us.
Photo / Alessandro Peccati
Client / Hermès
Year / 2008
In 2008, the Weekend bag won the first edition of the Prix Émile Hermès
Photo / Hermès
Client / Meritalia
Year / 2013
Giulio Iacchetti and Vittorio Venezia interpret Meritalia’s booth for Salone del Mobile 2013. A great multi stage arena on which sofas, armchairs and new interior elements are chief protagonists of the play staged during the Salone del Mobile. Meritalia news shine like stars by multiplying their images reflected in big hanging mirrors derived from the typical mirrors that are found in actors’ dressing rooms
Project Team / Giulio Iacchetti, Vittorio Venezia
Client / Iris ceramiche and Fmg fabbirica marmi e graniti
Year / 2008
Location / Cersaie Bologna, Italy
The stand is made from a sequence of faceted slabs that gradually change shape. The strips are clad in two tiles, one by Iris and one by FMG. Contrasting colours were used from each brand including a mottled blue and green shade from the FMG Nature 2.0 range
