Alessi: Where Myth Becomes Reality
Alberto Alessi talks to WWD about writing a fresh page into the history of the brand his grandfather started, with an abstract Milan Design Week exhibit and an origin story that’s never been told before.
MILAN — With a dash of mythology, a pinch of fantasy and shroud of mystery, the 103-year-old design brand Alessi will get a refresh come the first day of Design Week here. For Alberto Alessi, grandson of Alessi founder Giovanni, it's an epiphany.
"It's a moderate adaptation of Alessi's image to the contemporary. In particular, a slight intervention on the logo, a packaging project, which we have been missing for some time," Alberto Alessi said in an interview with WWD.
During Design Week here Monday, the family-run firm will unveil “Myth Makes Belief,” an immersive installation conceived by creative studio PlayLab Inc. of Los Angeles. The exhibit is comprised of three elements, each of which are designed to draw viewers deeper into the heart of the experience. The lake represents
Alessi's cultural and symbolic roots, while the mascot, which in this case is a cracking dragon egg, and the masks, invite visitors to become active participants in a fantastic tale about Alessi's origins.
This will unfold in Milan's 19th-century Palazzo Borromeo d'Adda, illustrating how the dragon of the lakeside town of Orta San Giulio became the ethereal guardian of its people. Alessi headquarters are located in Omegna, north of Orta San Giulio, a real town that is home to the Sacro Monte of Orta devotional complex dedicated to Catholic Saint Francis of Assisi, which is on the Unesco World Heritage list.
Throughout the installation, three new projects will be revealed — by the Cypriotborn, London-based designer Michael Anasstasiades, Japanese designer Naoto Fukasawa with 102- year-old Japanese dyer Samiro Yunoki, and another with the influential Japanese design Studio Nendo — that further expand upon the imaginary world and set the tone for a new chapter. A new, sleek Menhir coffee moka by Anasstasiades will be on show, and the Toru tea kettle by Studio Nendo, the Eugenia glassware, service wear by Naota Fukasawa and his Itsumo ceramics with Samiro Yunoki will be unveiled to highlight a more jovial yet clean and decisive design approach.
The company's rich history began 103 years ago with a brass and nickel silver sheet workshop and foundry and after the '80s the business became a home decor powerhouse that has woven its elegant spirit into everyday life. Over the decades, Alessi garnered international recognition for its envelope-pushing designs from architecture and design‘s most colorful icons — Ettore Sottsass, Aldo Rossi, Achille Castiglioni and Philippe Starck, among them.
Alberto Alessi, a main catalyst of the brand's international expansion, officially joined the company in 1970, a time where Alessi shed its industrial past and evolved into a creative design hub that echoed worldwide. No stranger to abstract fantasy, even back then, Alessi invited Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí into the mix with his Objet Inutile (Useless Object), a steel sheet sculpture held together by a wooden clothes pin. In the 80s, Alessi invited young architects and designers to participate in a competition involving the creation of a new tea and coffee set, marking a major pivot for the company.
Alberto joked that when it comes to future design direction, anything is possible. "By experimenting... at the moment we still don't know and perhaps we don't want to predict it!" he exclaimed.
Experimentation also means the company is testing new materials. In addition to the various metals, wood, porcelain, glass and plastic, the company continues to test materials with an increasingly reduced environmental impact, such as new biopolymers derived from renewable sources, he said.
As far as prerequisites for new designs and designers, his criteria remain unchanged.
"The requirements remain the same: first of all they should be poets, great (or at least good) poets, then they must be able to interpret the time in which they design, to make the world we live in today decipherable, but in a transcendent way," he pointed out, adding that the beauty of Alessi's products have managed to transcend time no matter the era or the circumstances.