Alberto Alessi would agree with his pal Philippe Starck on the uselessness of design if it weren’t for his family company’s roots.
“I totally understand his position and I’d be happy to agree with him if [my job] didn’t depend on making new design collections. Certainly there’s no need for a new chair or a new cutlery set, but humanity and designers are continuously triggered to design” new products, he says.
After toying with other materials, including wood, glass and plastics, for the 2023 edition of Salone del Mobile, Alessi, known for its kitchen ware and homeware, is harking back to its metalworking legacy rooted in cold-pressed stainless steel.
Ars Metallica, or Metal Arts in Latin, comprises four marquee projects and collaborations to be displayed inside Milan’s 13th-century Palazzo Borromeo d’Adda during Salone del Mobile. Overall they seem to retrace the company’s history without nostalgia and answer to business and personal needs.
They include a cutlery set by the late Virgil Abloh; a multiple art piece designed in 1971 by Salvador Dalì; the Tornitore Matto project involving eight contemporary designers, and a frying pan-inspired chair by Starck.
The latter signals Alessi’s ambitions in furniture, a category it toyed with in the past but never turned into a full-fledged business unit.
“It answers a curiosity I’ve had for a long time…[furniture] is a neighboring sector but very different, with different distribution, for instance. It’s oftentimes the same authors [designers] working for me and for furniture brands, making it all the harder to differentiate,” Alessi says.
Previous ventures in furniture included the Op-la table by Jasper Morrison and the foldable chair by David Chipperfield. “They were just episodes because we happened to be submitted that specific project, we liked it and made it.…Our goal now is to approach [the category] more decidedly,” Alessi says.
There’s more of a personal desire to get his own back in the Dalì art multiple.
As Alessi explains, upon entering the family business he “thought we should do something funnier than the usual trays and baskets, so I had the idea of using our machinery to do artworks instead of kitchenware, developed by artists rather than designers.”
His father stopped the project, which was called Alessi D’aprés, before multiples by the likes of Arnaldo Pomodoro, Pietro Consagra, Andrea Cascella and Dušan Džamonja, among others, hit retail. Dalì’s artwork — a single sheet of folded steel, steel comb and salmon fishing hooks, all held together by a wooden clothespin — called “Objet Inutile” was never produced and its sketches have been treasured in the Alessi archives for more than 50 years.
“It was just his Surrealist take on a company like Alessi that was toying with the art world,” Alessi explains.
After teaming with Abloh last year on a limited, 999-piece cutlery set, Alessi is issuing the first project the late design maverick submitted: A streamlined Brutalist cutlery set made of the four basic items with a wrench-like matte finish complemented by a cutlery stand and candlestick, both reminiscent of a screw.
“I like it even more than the previous one and it corresponds to the Brutalist and mechanical vision that Abloh wanted to telegraph. They still blend in with tableware but veer away from the style other Alessi collaborators have championed for cutlery in the past,” Alessi says.
Finally, the Tornitore Matto, or Mad Turner, answers Alessi’s penchant for challenging his collaborators with metal-turning techniques. The president has invited eight designers — including Federico Angi, Paolo Ulian, Nika Zupanc and Michael Anastassiades, among others — to develop a metal container, pushing the boundaries of creativity and handiwork.