Achille Castiglioni: The Master of The Italian Mid-Century Design

Written by Mark Jennings Sunday, 19 June 2011 09:43

Achille Castiglioni was born in Italy in 1918 and during his fifty-plus design career designed -or collaborated to- more than 150 objects from vacuum cleaners to bookshelves. A lot of his products -like the Luminator or Toio lamps- are today part of the permanent collection of the most important museums as icons of the italian mid-century design.

Achille Castiglioni was born in Italy in 1918 and during his fifty-plus design career designed -or collaborated to- more than 150 objects from vacuum cleaners to bookshelves. A lot of his products -like the Luminator or Toio lamps- are today part of the permanent collection of the most important museums as icons of the italian mid-century design.

Everyday objects' observation was often the starting point for his designs: "Design demands observation" was one of his mottoes. For example, to design the Arco lamp Achille and Pier Giacomo took inspiration by street lamps. The light source, in fact, is projected at least eight feet away from the marble base as it was coming from a normal ceiling chandelier. For the Toio lamp, instead, the inspiration was a car reflector.

Castiglioni's design approach can best be understood within the context of the cultural climate of which he was a product, and which he in turn helped to shape. Like other Italian designers and architects such as Marco Zanuso and Ettore Sottsass, he benefited from fortuitous combination of trends that has made italian design a worldwide force. In part because italian culture has always been founded on a tradition of the fine arts and of skillful craftsmanship, and in part because the disruption of World War ll had created a need for newly designed and produced objects to restore the country's quality of life, Italy was poised for a design renaissance in the 1950s.

Probably the most important contribution that Castiglioni gave to the italian design community, was his teaching at Architectural School of the Polytechnic of Milan: his lessons were the most crowded.

Using everyday objects from his enormous collection, Castiglioni demonstrated the power of simple, ingeniousness and seemingly unremarkable common objects. A significant example is the milking stool consisting of a round piece of Wood as a seat with a round incision into which fit the single wooden leg. Both parts were held together by a strip of leather, so hat the stool could be carried over the shoulder. Castiglioni, standing on a table, milked an invisible cow miming the stool's use proving how objects have a life of their own and are independent of any designer's name. He also wanted to stimulate his students to explore the design and its potentials themselves starting from objects based on common sense and available resources. "What you need is a constant and consistent way of designing, not a style." Castiglioni used to say to the students. His way was based on observing and understanding objects imagining need results in a satisfying design solution and that's why he become one of the masters of the italian mid-century design.