Achille Castiglioni
Op. cit. "Experience does not guarantee certainty or security, but rather increases the possibility of error. I would say that it is better to start again from scratch with humility to prevent experience from turning into craftiness"
Achille Castiglioni, born in 1918 in Milan, was an Italian architect and designer who entered the history of design, thanks to the incredible works he designed.
He graduated in 1944 from the Milan Polytechnics, and immediately joined his older brothers' firm (Livio and Pier Giacomo), dealing with architecture, urban planning, exhibitions and product design, a field, the latter, that always has aroused particular interest in him, so much so that in 1956 he was among the founders of the ADI (Association for Industrial Design).
During his career he received numerous prizes and awards and several Compassi d'Oro like the one for the Parentesi lamp, designed together with Pio Manzù. There are also many products that are exhibited in some of the most important museums in the world: are there fourteen of his works in the MoMa in New York alone and in 1997, right here, a monographic exhibition was organised entirely dedicated to the great designer.
Interested in how objects work since childhood, his whole life has been dedicated to the constant research of shapes, techniques and new materials, aimed at the completion of an integral design process.
In the fifties, his firm's business travelled down two parallel tracks. On the one hand, Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni's architecture that achieves important goals which later turned into successes such as the Pavilion of the Permanent, the Church of San Gabriele Arcangelo. On the other hand, instead, the theme of "re-design": that is, traditional objects, first identified and classified in categories, and subsequently gutted in form and function, until they reach their own aesthetic, absolutely new from the communicative point of view. This process has led to the creation of great internationally recognised design icons, produced by companies such as Zanotta, Flos, Kartell, Knoll, Alessi, Poltrona Frau and many others.
