Alessi is a

housewares Household goods are goods and products used within households. They are the tangible and movable personal property placed in the rooms of a house, such as a bed or refrigerator. Economic role Businesses that produce household goods are categorize ...

and

kitchen utensil A kitchen utensil is a small hand held tool used for food preparation. Common kitchen tasks include cutting food items to size, heating food on an open fire or on a stove, baking, grinding, mixing, blending, and measuring; different utensils a ...

company in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

, manufacturing and marketing everyday items authored by a wide range of designers, architects, and industrial designers — including Achille Castiglioni,

Richard Sapper Richard Sapper (30 May 1932 – 31 December 2015) was a German industrial designer based in Milan, Italy. He is considered one of the most important designers of his generation, his products typically featuring a combination of technical innovat ...

Alessandro Mendini Alessandro Mendini (16 August 1931 – 18 February 2019) was an Italian designer and architect. He played an important part in the development of Italian, Postmodern, and Radical design. He also worked, aside from his artistic career, for ''C ...

Ettore Sottsass Ettore Sottsass (Innsbruck, Austria 14 September 1917 – Milan, Italy 31 December 2007) was a 20th century Italian architect, noted for also designing furniture, jewellery, glass, lighting, home and office wares, as well as numerous buildings an ...

Wiel Arets Wiel Arets (, born ) is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist, industrial designer and the former Dean of the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, in the United States of America. Arets was pr ...

Zaha Hadid Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid ( ar, زها حديد ''Zahā Ḥadīd''; 31 October 1950 – 31 March 2016) was an Iraqi-British architect, artist and designer, recognised as a major figure in architecture of the late 20th and early 21st centu ...

Toyo Ito is a Japanese architect known for creating conceptual architecture, in which he seeks to simultaneously express the physical and virtual worlds. He is a leading exponent of architecture that addresses the contemporary notion of a "simulated" ...

Tom Kovac Tom or TOM may refer to: * Tom (given name), a diminutive of Thomas or Tomás or an independent Aramaic given name (and a list of people with the name) Characters * Tom Anderson, a character in ''List of Beavis and Butt-Head characters#Local r ...

Greg Lynn Greg Lynn (born 1964) is an American architect, founder and owner of the Greg Lynn FORM office, an o. University Professor in the Institute of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and a professor at the UCLA School of the Arts a ...

MVRDV MVRDV is a Rotterdam, Netherlands-based architecture and urban design practice founded in 1993. The name is an acronym for the founding members: Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs, and Nathalie de Vries. History Maas and Van Rijs worked at OMA, De Vr ...

Jean Nouvel Jean Nouvel (; born 12 August 1945) is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of ''Mars 1976'' and ''Syndicat de l'Architecture'', France’s first labor union for architects. He has ob ...

UN Studio UNStudio (formerly Van Berkel en Bos Architectenbureau) is a Dutch architectural practice specializing in architecture, urban development and "infrastructural" projects. The practice was founded in 1988 by Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos. The ini ...

Michael Graves Michael Graves (July 9, 1934 – March 12, 2015) was an American architect, designer, and educator, as well as principal of Michael Graves and Associates and Michael Graves Design Group. He was a member of The New York Five and the Memphis Grou ...

, and

Philippe Starck Philippe Starck (; born 18 January 1949) is a French industrial architect and designer known for his wide range of designs, including interior design, architecture, household objects, furniture, boats and other vehicles. Life Starck was born on ...

History

Alessi was founded in 1921 by Giovanni Alessi who was born in Italy and raised in Switzerland. A few years after World War 1, Alessi started with producing a wide range of tableware items in nickel, chromium and silver-plated brass. The company began when Carlo Alessi (born 1916), the son of Giovanni, was named chief designer. Between 1935 and 1945 he developed most of the products Alessi released.

1950s and 1960s

In 1969 the company was under the leadership of Carlo Alessi. It was his brother Luigi who introduced the collaboration with external designers in 1955. With some architects, he designed several items that were created for the hotel needs. He helped introduce many best-sellers, such as the historical series of ''wire baskets''. From 1957 by Luigi Massaroni and

Carlo Mazzeri Carlo is a given name. It is an Italian form of Charles. It can refer to: * Carlo (name) *Monte Carlo * Carlingford, New South Wales, a suburb in north-west Sydney, New South Wales, Australia *A satirical song written by Dafydd Iwan about Prince ...

. This was designed in a series with an ''Ice bucket'' and ''Ice tongs'' as part of the Program 4 for the 11 Triennale in Milan. This was the first time that the Alessi products got shown with manufactured goods. The 1950s were a difficult time as it was only a few years after World War II and many people could not afford to buy designer objects.

1970s and 1980s

In 1970, Alberto Alessi was responsible for the third transformation of the company. Alessi was considered one of the "Italian Design Factories". In this decade under the leadership of Alberto Alessi the company collaborated with some design maestros like Achille Castiglioni,

, and

. In the '70's, Alessi produced the ''Condiment set'' (salt, pepper and toothpicks) by

, the ''Espressomaker'' by Sapper. The 1980s marked a period in which Italian design factories had to compete with mass production. These movements had a different view on design, for the Italian design factories the design and therefore the designer was the most important part of the process while for the mass production the design had to be functional and easy to be reproduced. Also in the 1980s, they changed their marketing image from factory to industrial research lab, a place for research and production. For Alessi the '80's are marked with some designs like the ''Two tone kettle'' by Sapper, their first cutlery set ''Dry'' by Castiglioni. Alessi collaborated with new designers like

Aldo Rossi Aldo Rossi (3 May 1931 – 4 September 1997) was an Italian architect and designer who achieved international recognition in four distinct areas: architectural theory, drawing and design and also product design. He was one of the leading exponen ...

, and

, who have been responsible for the some of Alessi's all time bestsellers like the ''kettle'' with a bird whistle by Graves. Alessi faced increasing competition from other international manufacturers, especially in lower-cost products mass-produced for retailers such as

Target Corporation Target Corporation (doing business as Target and stylized in all lowercase since 2018) is an American big box department store chain headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the seventh largest retailer in the United States, and a compon ...

and J. C. Penney.

1990s

In the 1990s, Alessi started to work more with

plastics Plastics are a wide range of synthetic polymers, synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their Plasticity (physics), plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be Injection moulding, moulded, Extrusion, e ...

, at the request of designers who found it an easier material to work with than metal, offering more design freedom and innovative possibilities. The 1990s were marked by the theme "Family Follows Fiction", with playful and imaginative objects. Artists designing for this theme included Stefano Giovannoni and

, who designed ''Fruit Mama'' and the bestseller ''Anna G''. Metal still remained a popular material, for example the ''Girotondo'' family by King Kong.

2000s

During the 2000s, Alessi collaborated with several architects for its "coffee and tea towers," with a new generation of architects such as

, and

. These sets had a limited production of 99 copies. Another remarkable design in the 2000s is the ''Blow Up'' series by Fratelli Campana. The brothers played with form and shape to create baskets and other objects that look like they would fall apart when touched. In 2006, the company reclassified its products under three lines: "A di Alessi", "Alessi", and "Officina Alessi". A di Alessi is more "democratic" and more "pop", the lower price range of Alessi. Officina Alessi is more exclusive, innovative, and experimental, marked by small

batch production Batch production is a method of manufacturing where the products are made as specified groups or amounts, within a time frame. A batch can go through a series of steps in a large manufacturing process to make the final desired product. Batch prod ...

series and limited series. Alessi products are on display in museums worldwide like

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

(New York),

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

Pompidou Centre The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

, and Stedelijk Museum Italy. A collaboration with the

National Palace Museum The National Palace Museum (; Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: Kwet-li̍p kù-kiung pok-vu̍t-yèn), is a museum in Taipei, Republic of China (Taiwan). It has a permanent collection of nearly 700,000 pieces of Chinese artifacts and artworks, many of which wer ...

of Taiwan produced a collection of various kitchenware products with Asian themes.

Designers and their designs

From 1945 until today, Alessi has collaborated with designers and even other brands or companies for their products. Some key designs and their designers: * 1945 ''Bombé'' tea and coffee service by Carlo Alessi Anghini * 1978 ''Condiment set'' (salt, pepper and toothpicks) by

* 1979 ''Programma 5'' barware by

* 1979 ''9090 espresso maker'' by

. This design won the first Compasso d'Oro award for Alessi. * 1982 ''Dry'' flatware/cutlery by Achille Castiglioni the first

cutlery Cutlery (also referred to as silverware, flatware, or tableware), includes any hand implement used in preparing, serving, and especially eating food in Western culture. A person who makes or sells cutlery is called a cutler. The city of Sheffie ...

produced by Alessi * 1983 ''Bollitore'' whistling water kettle by

. Alessi's first "designer kettle", with a whistle whose pipe sings two tones, ''mi'' and ''si'', in harmony * 1984 ''La Conica'' by

. This was Rossi's first mass-production design and its image earned immediate success for the then-new ''Officina Alessi'' brand, as well as becoming a 1980s design symbol. Therefore, it was soon to be followed by more Rossi designs in this theme. * 1985 ''Kettle'' by

. The Graves' kettle is known for its singing bird when the water boils. Followed by matching products like a sugar bowl and a creamer, also designed by Graves. This product has sold the greatest number of units in the history of the company. * 1987 ''Nuovo Milano'' cutlery set designed by

with assistance of Alberto Gozzi. Won XVIth Compasso d'oro award in 1991. * 1988 ''Pito'' kettle by

Frank Gehry Frank Owen Gehry, , FAIA (; ; born ) is a Canadian-born American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become world-renowned attractions. His works are considered ...

* 1989 ''Girotondo'' family by King-Kong * 1989 ''Hot Bertaa'' kettle by

* 1990 ''

Juicy Salif Juicy Salif, a citrus reamer designed by Philippe Starck in 1990, is considered an icon of industrial design, and has been displayed in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, as ...

'' by Philippe Starck * 1993 ''Fruit Mama'' by

Stefano Giovannoni Stefano is the Italian form of the masculine given name Στέφανος (Stefanos, Stephen). The name is of Greek origin, Στέφανος, meaning a person who made a significant achievement and has been crowned. In Orthodox Christianity the ac ...

. The first design for the ''Family Follows Fiction'' series; noteworthy for its aesthetic juxtaposition of plastic and stainless steel. * 1994 ''Anna G'' corkscrew by

. A best seller since it was first produced, with its smiling face, it engendered the ''Anna'' family of related objects for the table and kitchen. * 1995 ''Mary Biscuit'' by Stefano Giovannoni. Biscuit or cookie container. * 1997 ''Nono di Antonio'' garlic crusher by

Guido Venturini Guido is a given name Latinised from the Old High German name Wido. It originated in Medieval Italy. Guido later became a male first name in Austria, Germany, the Low Countries, Scandinavia, Spain, Portugal, Latin America and Switzerland. The me ...

* 2004 ''Blow Up'' range of baskets and citrus holders by Fratelli Campana * 2006 ''Kaj'' watch by

Karim Rashid Karim Rashid (born 1960) is an Egyptian-born and Canadian raised industrial designer. His designs include luxury goods, furniture, lighting, surface design, brand identity and packaging. ''Time'' magazine has described him as the "most famous ind ...

* 2013 ''Dressed'' dinnerware and flatware by

Marcel Wanders Marcel Wanders (2 July 1963) is a Dutch designer, and art director in the Marcel Wanders studio in Amsterdam, who designs architectural, interior and industrial projects. Life Born in Boxtel, Wanders graduated Latin honors, cum laude from the ...

* 2015 ''Collo Alto'' cutlery set by

Inga Sempé Inga Sempé (born 1968) is a French designer and constructor of technical items, who designs furniture, lamps and other design objects for manufacturers like Ligne Roset, Alessi und Baccarat. She was awarded the Red Dot Design Award in 2007. ...

Cutlery set ''Collo Alto''
www.ingasempe.fr, retrieved 15 November 2015. * 2017 ''Forma'' cheese grater by

File:Ovaler Brotkorb.jpg, Oval breadbasket, 1955 File:Kessel R Sapper.jpg, Sapper kettle, 1983 File:Michael graver, servizio per te e caffe, 1933.JPG, Graves tea service, 1983 File:Graves kittel 1984.jpg, Graves kettle, 1984 File:Frank gehry per alessi spa., bollitore pito, 1988.jpg, ''Pito'' kettle, 1988 File:Philippe starck per alessi spa., bollitore hot bertaa, 1990.jpg, ''Hot Bertaa'' kettle, 1989 File:Juicy Salif - 78365.jpg, Starck ''

'' citrus juicer, 1990 File:Anna G.jpg, ''Anna G'' corkscrew, 1994 File:Guido Venturini - Firebird - Alessi (6837512195).jpg, ''Firebird'' gas lighter by Guido Venturini File:Fruit basket alessi.JPG, Alessi fruit basket

Critical reception

Although Alessi is credited with introducing many iconic design objects, critics have also complained about items designed for everyday household use, which do not perform their basic functions well.

References

External links

Alessi website

Interviews with Alessi Designers website

History of Alessi website
{{Authority control Design companies of Italy Kitchenware brands Italian brands Companies based in Omegna Design companies established in 1921 Manufacturing companies established in 1921 Italian companies established in 1921 Home appliance brands B Lab-certified corporations

History

1950s and 1960s

1970s and 1980s

1990s

2000s

Designers and their designs

Critical reception

See also

References

External links