Platform_Architecture_and_Design_1.pdf

54 PORTRAIT
IT’S THE LITTLE
DIFFERENCES THAT
In his studio, surrounded by the wood of the floor, the ceiling, the furniture,
architectural maquettes and picture frames, we start talking to Michele De Lucchi
about this material that is everywhere.
“I like using it” says Michele “because it is the most suitable material for
representing temporariness as opposed to permanence.
Even with the Soprintendenze, when I wanted to do something bold and even
violent, I suggested doing it in wood and it was accepted. In fact, wood suggests
something of a temporary nature, that can be reversed. I’m interested in a
natural surface which preserves within itself the flavour of the time that passes.
LB Today you are considered one of the contemporary masters; who were your
points of reference when you started your career?
MDL There were two significant characters, with two significant names: Ettore e
Achille (Ettore Sottsass and Achille Castiglioni). They taught me different things
that were sometimes diametrically opposite; two ways of approaching design.
Ettore worked by addition, like in children’s games, putting one piece on another,
with pencil in hand. Achille would come to a dead stop with a pencil; he loved to
wander, to ramble. He taught me to follow mental paths with no hesitation, to be
carried away by the irony in discussing apparently marginal aspects and details,
such as glossy or matte, on one material, without a fixed goal.
Wood as a material, the pleasure of using it for its own identity, is part of this
process of searching. The “San Girolamo” bookcase was designed by Olivetti
Sinthesys at the end of the 1980s as an alternative to the Tecno “Nomos” , to that
concept that was all steel, systemized, technological and industrialized. As a
product it was little understood then; today it’s still sold by Poltrona Frau.
LB Innovative designs sometimes need time to be understood. After that quality
design resists the passing of time; your “Tolomeo” lamp for Artemide has been
successful for decades.
MDL Design should respond to the need to represent a symbolic, not just a
functional value, and to resist as timelessly as possible. By this I don’t mean that
the kind of design that expresses immediacy is not also a quality design, but that
the two qualities are not alternatives, they represent two aspects of “doing” that
must be set in time but also go beyond it.
Michele De Lucchi, Masahiko Kubo,
Ink Jet Artjet 10, Olivetti, 1998
Ph. Luca Tamburlini
Michele De Lucchi, Giancarlo Fassina
Tolomeo, Artemide, 1987