ACMI and the Italian Institute of Culture Melbourne present
Object to Project: Giorgetti Design since 1898
Tickets
When
Wed 25 May - Sun 29 May 2022
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A trio of short form films focused on three of Milan's premier furniture and interior design firms: Giorgetti, De Castelli and Lualdi
The history of furniture design firm, Giorgetti, began in 1898, in a family workshop in Meda, in Brianza, a region of Lombardy that became a world class hub for Italian furniture manufacturing. Luigi Giorgetti's grandson, Carlo, ushered in a new era for the 'Fabbrica Sedie e Poltrone' ('Chair and Armchair Factory') by branching out into the United States as early as the 1930s, though Molteni's film focuses on milestones in the company's development closer to home. Interviews with key players, historians, design critics and some of the influential architects who were persuaded to join the firm as designers - Massimo Scolari recalls it took two years of overtures to be persuaded to join the company but that once he did, he happily stayed 25 years - relate a concise yet comprehensive history of a furniture design company that has remained relevant by successfully integrating an ethos of adapting elements of traditional craftsmanship with cutting-edge digital technology.
Object to Project: Giorgetti Design since 1898 screens with short films The Sound of Metal (2021) and Doors: Lualdi Stories (2019).
Screens with
The Sound of Metal
Architect and Venice Architecture Biennale regular Cino Zucchi guides us through the genesis of a recent collaboration with leading design firm De Castelli; a project to create their new showroom in a former art gallery in Milan (at Via Uberto Visconti di Modrone, 20). Unveiled in 2021, Zucchi leads us through the arched doors of a converted seventeenth century building into the light-filled spaces he has designed, seamlessly integrating the metals De Castelli employ in their furniture and interior design – "a place where a craftsman expresses the joy of of doing" in "a showroom not just of products, but of processes".
Francesca Molteni | 2021 | Italy | Italian and French with English subtitles | DCP | 9 min
Doors: Lualdi Stories
The history of Lualdi – the Italian design company that specialises in the design of interior doors and partition systems – began in a carpentry workshop in 1860. Industrial innovations in the 1960s led to a landmark collaboration with architect Luigi Caccia Dominioni, the co-creator of Lualdi's iconic glossy lacquered doors in polyster, who famously remarked that the signature red of the LCD polyester door series reminded him not "of Ferrari, but of Chinese vases". Extending its influence beyond a dedicated network of Milan-based architects, in the 1980s Lualdi branched into the British market and then into the U.S., establishing showrooms in New York and Miami; a process of internationalisation that was also fostered by industrial designer and Knoll Design Director, Carl Magnusson, who married into the family. (His talented partner is architect and designer, Emanuela Frattini Magnusson, daughter of Gianfrano Frattini, a key member of the influential generation that created the Italian design movement in the 1950s and '60s.) Bringing us up to the date, contemporary design collaborators speak to Lualdi's focus on innovation and a commitment to sustainable materials and processes.
Francesca Molteni | 2019 | Italy | English | DCP | 34 min
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