Client / ADSINT for “Legami Anonimi”, an exhibition curated by Lorenzo Palmeri at Triennale Design Museum
Year / 2016
Vase, inspired by ADSINT values, made of metal mixing, in new ways, the three-dimensional printing technology with the work of the artisans.
Client / Lithea
Year / 2018
A collection of modular volcanic stone tiles characterised by three-dimensional design motifs that can be put together in various compositions. The idea for this design comes from the recollection of a small house-museum belonging to a majolica collector which was hidden in an eighteenth century building in the historical centre of Palermo. The ‘maioliche di pietra’ represent this idea: of what the Mediterranean symbolises, carved with skilled craftsmanship which sets apart Lithea’s production from other companies’. These are rectangular pieces, small low-relief designs whose three-dimensional, geometric surfaces reminiscent of the grooved trunks of the columns, of the dry, stone walls, of the blocks of the mines from which they are extracted, of the squared or diamond-shaped renaissance Bossage, of the chiaro-scuro and play of light which are typical of the baroque period. The collection includes an up-down mirror and a free-standing wash basin, made up of a circular volcanic stone sink held up by a thin iron structure and a series of small accessories which are easily grafted on to the pierced tiles.
Credits
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Materials / Volcanic stone which comes from the mines located at the foot of Mount Etna. Extremely resistant and very similar to granite in terms of hardness, it was used in the past for paving squares and roads, as decoration and building material for many aristocratic and religious buildings in the historical centre of Catania and its provinces. A volcanic rock basin with an iron structure, varnished with an opaque black powder.
Dimensions / 16 x 32 cm
Photo / Nino Bartuccio
Stylist / Paolo Gagliardi
Client / Martinelli Luce
Year / 2017
I desired to realize a lamp able to generate simultaneously a direct, diffuse and reflected light on a very large area. I wanted it to be a simple object, discreet and 'lightweight', composed of a few elements, only those necessary for its operation.
Coassiale (Coaxial) is a lamp essentially consisting of two spot led that project, from above and from below, on a reflective disc. This disc can be placed at different heights and generates different light effects. The two LEDs with twelve degrees of opening are housed inside two cylinders lamp holder of black colour: one hanged on ceiling, which also contains the power supply, and the other suspended by gravity which acts as a counterweight. Between the two metal tubes are stretched two thin cables on which is hanged the circular opal methacrylate plate with screw terminals that allow its movement along the vertical. The light changes and takes its shape according to the position and the distance of the reflective item from the point sources. The device makes possible infinite lighting geometries. The light can define a space, always different, without occupying it.
Moreover, the device, consisting of separate elements, allows a minimum space in the packaging and a quick assembling.
The product is part of the exhibition display "Collection SaloneSatellite 20 years," which will be presented to the public during the Salone del Mobile 2017 in Milan.
Credits
Concept and design / Vittorio Venezia
Client / Mingardo
Year / 2017
When in November we had the opportunity to design for Mingardo, we immediately imagined a simple object to highlight the superior craftsmanship ability of the carpenter's shop in controlling technical details. We thought about a stackable chair that could have been easily disassembled and mounted to optimize transport and shipping in a small package. We were not so interested in the final form but we desired that the technical components of the joint between the parties, essential for the proper functioning of the project, were evident and would have adopted an expressive and narrative value: we wanted them to be perceived as the most valuable parts of object, almost like jewels to display. We also desired the project talking Italian in the world. So Brugola was born: an interlocking chair made by iron characterized by clear and essential lines, with sincere aesthetic enriched by visible Allen screws countersunk head, finished in brass. The chair consists of only 7 elements screwed together: the 4 legs and the cross bracing, which constitute the structure produced with metal profiles with a square section 20 mm thick, the backrest and the circular seat, obtained from a 5 mm thick iron plate. The seat is characterized by a screw in its centre that marks the point of union to the legs.
Credits
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Materials / Structure: varnished iron. Allen screws countersunk head, finished in brass
Dimensions / W 48 cm - D 53 cm - H 75 cm (H seat 45 cm)
Photo /
Client / Paestum Experience, curator Mario Scairato
Year / 2017
Classical ruins are a constant and distinctive presence in the plains of Paestum. For those who look at them, the imposing Greek temples and Roman and Lucanian remains generate an attraction that transcends that they are only interesting because they are monuments: their incompleteness is captivating and becomes a stimulus for creativity.
The archaeological traces have inspired the design of a small marble object, which has the function of a spaghetti measure and the form of a fragment from a Roman aqueduct. A conception, therefore, that combines two of Italy's most representative icons - spaghetti and classical architecture - this kitchen tool measures pasta for one or more people. We have chosen marble as the material, so beloved of the Ancients who used it to decorate their floors, fountains and architectural ornaments. In addiction to Carrara White, the piece has been made in colourful varieties such as Royal Beige, Asiago Red, Guatemala Green, Tropical Rose, Sunny Gold and Marquinia Black.
The spaghetti measure we designed for Spazio Paestum is like an imaginary fragment: it reminds of the mythical past of the city of Paestum and it is an object that everyone can bring home.
The exhibition shows a landscape of stone fragments and suggests an imaginary cataloguing of unveiled finds. The scraps of the marbles, recovered from the production of the several spaghetti measures, become witnesses and protagonists of the space intended as fascination of memory.
Credits
Concept and design / Martinelli Venezia
Curator / Mario Scairato
Graphic design / Ascione Magro
Client / Colé. Italian Design Label
Year / 2017
Libra is a simple solid wood shelf, suspended by a central steel belt, which appears in perfect balance, supporting the equilibrium of objects loaded at its ends. The metal support surrounds the convex wood base deforming itself and generating a material illusion: at first glance, it looks like a leather belt. The image that inspired the project is, in fact, the traditional port-books belt, used by our grandparents before the advent of schoolbags. Actually, inside the wooden shelf, is hidden a metallic flat bar fixed to the support structure that makes the object stable and resistant.
Credits
Concept and design / Martinelli Venezia
Photo / Colé. Italian Design Label
Client / Slide
Year / 2018
Ponente is an outdoor lounge seat with an adjustable backrest, we designed for the company Slide. Its design is inspired by the architecture of bridges, for this reason it covers large lengths in spite of reduced sections. We wanted to achieve a balance between soft shapes, typical of the creations obtained through rotational moulding, and thin thickness, which allows to reduce the physical and perceptive weight of a large object. Ponente can be used in gardens, pools, resorts, spa and beauty centers.
Credits
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Materials / polyethylene
Dimensions / 200x68x34 cm (WxDxH) / 25 Kg (weight)
Photo / Miro Zagnoli
4decimi WINNER OF DESIGNREPORTAWARD2015
Year / 2015
4decimi is a collection of twelve pendant steel lamps, inspired by the sculptural simplicity of metal containers and traditional tools of western Sicily. Each light fitting is hand-cut, curved, bent and welded by eighty-six years old craftsman Nino Ciminna in the oldest workshop of via Calderai. 4decimi is one part of the OfficineCalderai project which also includes Ferro collection.
Credits
Concept and design / Vittorio Venezia
Collaboration in the Project / Carolina Martinelli
Production / Nino Ciminna
Photo / Angelo Cirrincione, Carolina Martinelli
Client / Design Pinetum 02. Innesti villa Gaeta. An exhibition curated by Bruno Boretti, Silvia Fabbroni, Laura Moretti and Guido Pellegrini in the Pinetum of Villa in Gaeta (Moncioni, Chianti)
Year / 2015
“Pinetum 02. Innesti villa Gaeta” is a cultural event curated by Bruno Boretti, Silvia Fabbroni, Laura Moretti and Guido Pellegrini. Each year several artists and designers are invited to design an installation for the old Villa Gaeta and its woods (Pinetum) in Moncioni (Chianti, Tuscany), working with a local company.
The first time I visited the Villa seemed full autumn, although was summer. It was raining so heavily and the few rays of sunlight could hardly filter through the thick blanket of leaves and branches of the forest. In that day I realized that my project would have had to do with the light. More than conventional lamps, I wanted to design a kind of installations that invite us to reflect both on the space and on the light.
Cerchio: Easily to transport, due the central handle, these circles lamp frame the landscape as windows overlooking the nature.
Magnetica: a suspended lamp that combines LED technology with the permanent magnets. Two bodies of turned metal are supported exclusively by the force of attraction of the magnets at the extremities. The constant magnetic field thus generated gives the lamp a sense of lightness, making it susceptible to external vibrations.
Credits
Concept and design / Vittorio Venezia
Collaboration in the project / Andrea Signoretto
Photo / Andrea Signoretto
Client / DeCastelli
Year / 2018
An essential writing desk, a small stool and a cupboard. A collection composed of three pieces that reminds us of tiny medieval and renaissance studios.
Embellished by precious metals like iron, brass and copper enhanced by De castelli’s finishes, the writing desk and the secretaire can be fixed to the wall, suitable for every areas to contain, collect, order, hide.
M1 is a secretaire characterized by an elongated structure. The lower part can open to become a writing desk and the inner section reveals space to file documents and a light source.
The M2 stool completes the ensemble. A wooden seat placed on a tiny iron structure.
M3 is a round cabinet. The central door opens elliptically, following telescopic lanes and guaranteeing the maximum opening of the piece.
Credits
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Dimensions / M1 secretaire: closed 125x23xh.50 cm / open 125x63xh.40 cm / M2 stool: 50x22xh.45 cm / M3 cabinet: Ø 90 x 24 cm
Photo / © MassimoGardone
Client / Colleoni Arte
Year / 2017
Penelope is a circular carpet. It is sewn, partly by machine and partly by hand, with a particular photoluminescent yarn.
It is designed for the Colleoni Arte gallery and produced in limited series into the laboratories neighbouring to the gallery that work scrupulously also as suppliers for activities in the area of Bergamo, producing padded, curtains, carpeting, upholstery.
When Colleoni asked us to draw an object to be exhibited to the Miart 2017 (the International Modern and Contemporary Art Fair, Fieramilanocity Milan), we immediately thought to something that would been able to emphasize the ability of the craftsmen working in the laboratory of upholstery since its foundation. At the same time, we wanted to realize something that would express an innovation in its simplicity, confirming as a traditional manufacturing can be contemporary.
The material gives the technological innovation of the project: a polyester yarn, loaded with mineral pigments able to store daylight or artificial light, and to release it in the darkness.
To emphasize the surprise effect, we chose to use as the base of the carpet a white fabric, characterized by a light texture rifled in which the designed seams are seamlessly hidden. In that way, by day the effect is white on white, while in darkness begins to appear the geometric decoration with warping in parallel rows embroidered with a “zig zag seam” that, remembering the carpet of Penelope in the Homeric epics, appears and disappears.
The radius of the circle (120 cm) is given by the maximum width of the fabric production, and is obtained by two half circles rotated of ninety degrees each and joined toghether in the center with an handmade “sorfilo seam”.
Credits
Concept and design / Martinelli Venezia
Production / Colleoni Roberto & C
Client / Jannelli&Volpi
Year / 2017
“Wallpaper Rhapsody” is a path of installations inside the showroom Jannelli&Volpi in Milan, where the new collections Jannelli&Volpi are exhibited in the Gallery.
When we think to wallpaper, we associate it almost automatically with the image of a covering - made in various colors, decorations and materials - applied to vertical surfaces to embellish a space: a background. The objective of the "Wallpaper Rhapsody" project is to change the point of view, going beyond the traditional concept of wallcovering, and bring out the wallpaper in the foreground, like a figure in the center of the scene.The exhibition “Wallpaper Rhapsody” - involving the whole building Jannelli&Volpi - is characterized by a set of narrative episodes of very different (in form, color, decoration) proposed in a harmonious balance because united by the same goal: to reflect and synthesize the virtuosity and the complex world of Jannelli&Volpi. The wallpaper assumes a three-dimensional appearance and becomes the subject of a series of installations that alternate, as in a musical rhapsody, where the themes are intertwined, interact and meet on the various floors of the showroom.
Exhibition /
2nd Floor
Pinacoteca / the central event, with new collections Jannelli&Volpi as works of art
Poster / dedicated to Wallcoverings01 MissoniHome
Toy Library / with the amazing world of Giovanni Motta
1st Floor
Zoo / exhibition of animals/masks, by Naba Academy / Prof. Claudio Larcher
Fox / exhibition of fox masks, by Emmanuel Zonta
Labyrint / a path in the world of wallcovering
JVstore / what’s new in the world of design
Ground Floor
Carousel / a carousel of shapes and colors, by GISTO
Credits
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Photo / Studio Kind
Press Office / Nicoletta Murialdo and Ilaria Giglio
Client / Slow, a design exhibition curated by Alice Stori Liechtenstein at Schloss Hollenegg, Vienna
Year / 2016
FerroMobile consists of a collection of chandeliers developed at the via Calderai workshops. In this famous street of Palermo, experienced craftsmen still produce traditional metal tools.
FerroMobile rethinks the chandelier as an extremely lightweight and decorative aerial object. Each suspended lamp, in spite of the material of which it is made, confronts the air and explores balance and movement. The design is founded on the principle of asymmetric metallic cages perfectly balanced on the back of a cylinder. Each cylinder is broken down into several moving parts that rotate perpetually. This way the appearance of the chandelier changes continuously, constantly creating a new equilibrium, each time more articulated.
From a constructive point of view, these unique items are made of iron, combining the CNC cutting technique with the handcrafted pivot. The project was born from the desire to rediscover traditional forms and craftsmanship and combine them to new technologies, to produce original items.
Credits
Concept and design / Martinelli Venezia
Exhibition / Slow, Schloss Hollenegg, Vienna
Client / Ambiente Fair, Frankfurt
Year / 2016
The main concept of the installation is to bring a piece of Italy in Germany, or recreate the atmosphere of holidays and the kitsch accent of Italian bathhouses, to enjoy a relaxing break in a place as the Fair, conceived only for business.
Credits
Concept and design / Giulio Iacchetti, Martinelli Venezia
Client / Moleskine
Year / 2016
A new traveling collections of soft leather bags that create a sense of belonging in a nomadic world.
The design of the series is strictly linked to the identity of the brand and it is characterize by a soft folded base and vertical straps that allow bag to stand and improves to be confortable to wear at the same time.
The collection includes five models (backpack, reporter, slim briefcase, tote, messenger), all of them organized with multi-purpose pockets and storage panels.
Credits
Concept and design / Martinelli Venezia
Photo / Moleskine
Client / Premax
Year / 2016
AFFILATA is a collection of scissors and paper knife, made of anodized aluminum in several colours.
The project won the Design Competition Creatività 2016 and has been exhibited during Homi 2016 and in the Torre Velasca, Milan.
Credits
Concept and design / Carolina Martinelli
Product development / Carlo Bellati
Dimensions / paper knife: 200x10x20 mm (lxdxh) 60 gr; scissor: 185x60x5 mm (lxdxh) 60 gr
Client / Atom for “Atom: The Cutting Factory”, an exhibition curated by Giulio Iacchetti and Francesca Molteni
Year / 2016
Geometrie Flessibili (Flexible Geometries) is the result of research into particular forms of cutting, with the capacity to change 2D rigid plates into 3D plastic surfaces. The project involves the design of dense layout, with both decoration and functional purpose, consisting of Y-shaped silhouettes, repeated in a strict geometrical pattern. The pattern was cut with an Atom machine from a fibre-board, a material used in the shoe industry, and combined in modules to create 3D profiles, similar to a twenty-sided polyhedron. The result is an object with densely laced concave sides giving elasticity to the structure without losing rigid strength. The geometry of the solid structure appears invisible is almost im-perceptible. The shadow appears to be more physical than the real structure.
The project has been displayed in the Triennale di Milano and in the Sala dell’Affresco in Castello di Vigevano during “Atom: The Cutting Factory” an exhibition curated by Giulio Iacchetti e Francesca Molteni.
Credits
Concept and design / Martinelli Venezia
Material / 1-mm fiberboard
Technology / knife cutting system equipped with silent pneumatic chuck
Client / Atom for “Atom: The Cutting Factory”, an exhibition curated by Giulio Iacchetti and Francesca Molteni
Exhibition layout / Matteo Ragni Studio
Graphic design / Leonardo Sonnoli (Tassinari/Vetta)
Photo / Miro Zagnoli
Client / Moleskine
Year / 2016
A new collections of soft leather wallets that complete the family of the Lineage Leather Bags.
The design of the series is strictly linked to the identity of the brand, from the familiar rounded corners and the monochrome cover to the minimalist language and the accurateness of rigorous details. In their simplicity, the pockets are characterized by curved lines that refer to the card files.
The collection includes five models (card, horizontal, passport, smart, zip), produced in four different colour (black, blue, brown, pink).
Credits
Concept and design / Martinelli Venezia
Photo / Moleskine
Client / Luce5
Year / 2016
Magnetica is a pendant lamp that combines LED technology and permanent magnets. Two bodies machined from blocks of solid aluminium, one polished and the other lacquered in matt black, are supported exclusively by the force of attraction of magnets at the extremities. The constant magnetic field thus generated gives the lamp a sense of lightness, making it susceptible to external vibrations. The part containing the LED produces a spotlight, that becomes a diffuse glow when close to the upper body mirror. Magnetica, instead of a conventional lamp, can be defined as a kind of installation that invites reflection both on space and light. The project was born on September 2015 for the cultural exhibition Design Pinetum 02 Innesti (Grafts), curated by Bruno Boretti, Silvia Fabbroni, Laura Moretti and Guido Pellegrini: a biennial of design interventions alternated with works of artists in residence, designed to be inserted in the beautiful setting of the seventeenth-century Villa Gaeta and in its nineteenth-century arboretum in the Pinetum of Moncioni in Chianti (Tuscany). Its success has convinced LUCE5, the company that made the prototypes, to produce the lamp in a series.
Credits
Concept and design / Vittorio Venezia
Collaboration in the project / Andrea Signoretto
Sale / Rossana Orlandi Gallery
Photo / Francesca Ferrari
Year / 2016
S2 model is inspired by Thonet Program 209 characterized by the sinuous frame of steamed solid bentwood. The S02 chair is made with pieces CNC that are cut, hand-welded from 10 mm thick iron slabs and finally painted in grey.
Michael Thonet revolutionized the concept of the woodwork in the Victorian era, by inventing the "bentwood furniture", and in the same way the VARIAZIONIDIFERRO collection will attempt to renew the traditional production of furniture in metal profiles and the way in which they are designed and built. To cut and assemble metal parts, using hand-welding according to the book, allows the generation of indeterminate variations with similar results to other manufacturing techniques, such as three-dimensional printing or investment casting.
Credits
Concept and design / Vittorio Venezia
Collaboration in the Project / Carolina Martinelli
Client / Galleria SXX
Year / 2015
Ego is a collection of ten masks, designed during the cultural event “I-Design Palermo 2015” .
The masks are designed as tangles of uninterrupted iron profiles that, when are traversed by light, generate surprising shadows, sometimes similar to anthropomorphic figures.
Gli oggetti sono realizzati con una nuova tecnica di lavorazione che combina taglio CNC e saldatura manuale.
Credits
Concept and design / Martinelli Venezia
Dimension / 30x30x30 cm (LxDxH)
Year / 2016
The project illustrates the first results of the research conducted during 2015 by Vittorio Venezia and Carolina Martinelli on the manufacture of the vases of Caltagirone, assisted by Andrea Branciforti, a local designer who has been coordinating for years a wide network of neighborhood craftsmen in the production of high quality items. The tradition of terracotta in this town in the Sicilian hinterland is very old and this is confirmed by its name of Arabic origin Qal'at al Ghiran, or "Cliff of vases". Thanks to the abundant availability of raw material and the skill of generations of craftsmen, this territory has succeeded, over the centuries, in gaining the distinction of "The city of Ceramic". Many do not know that Caltagirone is actually made up of two towns within the city. On the tops of three hills adjacent to the chain of Erei stands the historical and tourist centre, with its famous staircase surrounded by numerous workshops specialized in the decoration of ceramics; downstream – more than five kilometres away – is placed, instead, the industrial district. This was born in the Sixties when the growth of the exportation demand for pieces of great value encouraged the development of small companies, mostly family owned, suitable for the production of standardized items in large numbers. Unfortunately, in recent years, the heavy economic crisis and international competition have led to the marginalization and impoverishment of the entire production area. Although there are still many master craftsmen who perpetuate the tradition, almost all industries are empty and the presses and ovens are turned off. This place has become the basis of a project that tells precisely of this duality and this rift between city- craftsmanship world and the industrial world, attempting in some way to bridge this gap.
The result is a family of ceramic containers that combine a mass production system with a manual manufacturing. In particular, they are composed of two halves: the lower parts are constituted by classic vases made with the mould, standardized, on which are overlapped forms made using the lathe, always different because they are manually crafted and because they are designed as constant variations of traditional techniques, decomposed and recomposed in unusual iconographies. Thus, the objects realized are not an end in themselves, but they represent an excuse to tell a story, spaces, reflections and to rediscover a tradition that is taken for granted and that, instead, it can be an inexhaustible source of originality. Our contemporary can again originate from our neighbourhood, so why not start it right from Caltagirone? From a small site on a small street, where artisans are masters in shaping the material with traditional techniques that when remixed and concentrated in a new project can become unusual and innovative.
Credits
Concept and design / Martinelli Venezia
Coordinate Manufactured / Andrea Branciforti
Client / Falper
Year / 2013
In 2013, the project won the Cristalplant Design Contest, which then resulted in the successful "Controstampo" collection for Falper. The collection includes a washbasin and a bathtub.
Credits
Concept and design /
Dario Gaudio, Vittorio Venezia
Photo / Falper
Client / Internoitaliano
Year / 2014
A watering can made of bent sheet metal and welded adopting one of the oldest handicraft techniques used by “lo stagnino”, a traveling handyman specialized in welding. Idro is designed to be an environmentally-friendly, “green” object in every aspect: function, construction, form. Completely handmade, Idro’s flared top is useful for collecting rainwater.
Credits
Concept and design / Giulio Iacchetti, Vittorio Venezia
Production / Nino Ciminna
Photo / Internoitaliano
Client / TobeUs
Year / 2012
"I like stories that begin with a piece of wood"
A toy designed for Matteo Ragni's 100%TobeUs Collection.
Credits
Concept and design / Vittorio Venezia
Photo / Max Rommel
Client / PPP burger
Year / 2015
Location / Palermo, Italy
Inspiring source of the atmosphere of this restaurant are the braziers laboratories (Officine Calderai), a historical and reference place for all the inhabitants of Palermo where you can still see skilled craftsmen who perpetuate an ancient tradition of this city. Processing techniques and welding of metal, usually aimed at the production of artifacts useful to everyday life - boilers (or quarare in Sicilian dialect, from which originates the name of the street), cauldrons, trays, cruets, etc. - have been used here to make lamps, tables, chairs, racks, window and door fixtures. Each element - from the tray on which they served sandwiches, to lamps, to hand basin, etc. - is specially designed and is different from the others. They are unique pieces, like all products in this street of Palermo. In particular, the seven lamps above the counter, handmade and tin, have all different forms. The interior design of the PPP Burger - a hamburger fast food restaurant who interprets the quintessential American street food with ingredients sourced entirely Sicilian - thus combining a strong local identity with international aspects. The space is designed as a single environment, where only a long counter divides the areas of work and consumption, so that the customer is fully involved in the experience of preparing food and beverage. The entrance door, a double folding door, according to different seasons or needs, can be opened partially or completely in order to transform the interior into an exterior and vice versa. Even in the winter days, the large windows allow a visual continuity between inside and outside. The materials and colors used combine a strong industrial and handcrafted style: the lighting system, draft beer system and the taps of the sinks are made of galvanized steel pipes in view; furniture - stools, tables, counter, racks - are made of wood and rusted iron; material, the latter, also used for doors and window frames; gray walls and floors recall the concrete; while the bathroom walls are covered in chalkboard
Credits
Concept and design / Martinelli Venezia
Production / Enzo Zerbo Fabbro, Giana Costruzioni, Matranga Falegnameria, Nino Ciminna Artigiano
Photo / Angelo Cirrincione
Client / Institut Culturel Italien in Paris
Year / 2013
Terracotta vases inspired by extrados domes. The dome is a curvilinear or polygonal vault geometrically generated by rotation of a curve around a vertical axis. Originally used by Romans, the domes - spherical, hip, umbrella, extrados, with or without eye - never ceased to be built becoming a typical element of Italian city skyline.
Credits
Concept and design / Vittorio Venezia
Collaboration in the Project / Giorgio Laboratore
Client / Institut Culturel Italien in Paris
Year / 2013
Notes, drawings and models inspired to Italy for Italian Institute of Culture in Paris. Once upon a time Grand Tour used to bring people all the way throughout Italy to the deep south, Sicily. Nowadays, I’d like to think that I have done a similar journey but pointing north, all the way to Paris. My aim in fact is to draw and design and sometimes event to craft objects myself. I much prefer the ones that can be used for some purpose and thus I am called a designer. During my residence in Paris at the Italian Institute I was asked to design an Italian merchandising family. I started my research trying to define a project with a strong and direct link to Italy, to Italian culture, sot that it could be a synthesis of the "Bel Paese". The project here presented is the un-coordinated array of objects inspired by Italy. Rather than finished items I like to describe them as travel notes. I conceived them as un-coordinated as they are born from different methodologies: some are formal quotation, others come from simple sensations, perception of different materials or the manipulation of familiar objects. I like to design working on indirect memories such as the roll while moving on the Lagoon in Venice; the chimneys in a painting by Giorgio De Chirico; the big domes in Turin, Florence and Rome; a moka coffee maker; wood grain; a clothes peg… and the list could continue forever. Travel notes. The focus of this project was to steal symbol of the Italian culture re interpret them and transform them into simple object that try to convey a memory, a distant echo of belonging somewhere. Some of the objects I designed have been developed with craftsmen and artisans in different Italian cities and with different expressions. The glass, for instance, is made in Vicenza, the toll in Palermo, the sun glasses in Sorrento, marble is from Comiso. Other objects have been rapid prototyped, they create undefined forms, representative of one single idea. I love to call this approach un-coordinated as it attempts to harness and metabolize all the slight differences and sensations of such unique a culture that can only be described as Italian.
Credits
Concept and design / Vittorio Venezia
Collaboration in the Project / Giorgio Laboratore
FERRO WIN 1st PRIZE DESIGNREPORTAWARD2015
Year / 2015
Inspired by the brazier grills still manufactured in the workshops of renowned via Calderai in Palermo, Ferro is a furniture and accessories collection. The product family includes five seats, a table, six flowerpot holdersand a doorstop. Each piece is CNC cut from 5 and 10 thick iron slabs and hand welded by one of the youngest blacksmiths of the street. Ferro is one part of the OfficineCalderai project which also includes 4decimi collection.
Credits
Concept and design / Vittorio Venezia
Collaboration in the Project / Carolina Martinelli
Photo / Angelo Cirrincione, Carolina Martinelli
Client / Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Parigi
Year / 2013
Glasses walnut, handmade.
Credits
Concept and design / Vittorio Venezia
Project Assistant / Giorgio Laboratore
Client / Meritalia
Year / 2013
Giulio Iacchetti and Vittorio Venezia interpret Meritalia’s booth for Salone del Mobile 2013. A great multi stage arena on which sofas, armchairs and new interior elements are chief protagonists of the play staged during the Salone del Mobile. Meritalia news shine like stars by multiplying their images reflected in big hanging mirrors derived from the typical mirrors that are found in actors’ dressing rooms.
Credits
Concept and design / Giulio Iacchetti, Vittorio Venezia
Client / ITF
Year / 2009
Modular bookcase made from a metal sheet bent
Project Team / David Dolcini, Vittorio Venezia
Photo / PlusLab
Exhibition / Associazione Flavio Beninati for the exhibition "Archeologie dal futuro" curated by Gianni Pedone and Manfredi Beninati
Year / 2014
Location / Associazione Flavio Beninati, Palermo, Italy
Opera Incompiuta is a work produced for the exhibition Archaeology of the future, curated by Gianni Pedone and Manfredi Beninati. The designers invited were asked to produce an object that, once found in the future, would be able to tell our present. Carolina Martinelli and Vittorio Venezia exhibited a brick, an object that has value in itself, but which, at the same time, can be also interpreted as a ruin of a more complex work (infrastructure, building, furnishings). The solid brick belongs to the tradition, is solid and durable in the future. Its core is carved with an incision that is reminiscent of brick stamps imprinted on the ancient Roman brick, despite being made with a contemporary technology, the water jet cutting. The inscription bears the date of the day on which the work was created, so that any archaeologist of the future can easily decode, and written Opera Incompiuta (Unfinished Opera). This phrase expresses both the incompleteness of the testimony emerged and the particular historical moment in which we are living, characterized by many projects, industrial product or architecture, which remain only drawings or that are interrupted before their completion. Opera Incompiuta is an ornament that every politician should keep on his night table.
Credits
Concept and design / Martinelli Venezia
Client / Exhibition "Design nel pallone" curated by Francesca Molteni and Giulio Iacchetti
Year / 2013
Location / Sao Paulo, Brazil
Reinterpretation of the famous football Super Santos for the exhibition "Design nel Pallone", curated by Francesca Molteni and Giulio Iacchetti. In the eternal soccer games that seemed to never end, I remember the Super Santos chiming in every goal the passage of time, with his unmistakable thud of metal on the shutters. This noise was contained in joy and pain: not only represented the sound of the goal, but most likely would have aroused the hatred of the neighbors, who regularly threatened to puncture the balloon so loved. I tried then to design a sphere impossible to drill, an elastic structure outside that could never lose its shape, inspired by the lines that characterize the Super Santos. Prototyped sintered nylon and sheets PPL cut and riveted
Credits
Concept and design / Vittorio Venezia
Photo / Miro Zagnoli
Workshop / Abadir
Year / 2012
Workshops in food design about the reinterpretation of the traditional icicle. The objective of the study was to explore the various phases of the project, from the development of a concept to the realization of the model, all starting from a common theme, namely that of icicle as "form supported by a stick". Design a new form of ice is also a way to practice on changes, or those slight deviations from the classical form that result in countless variations
Credits
Concept / Massimo Tepedino, Vittorio Venezia
Tutor / Giorgio Laboratore, Andrea Signoretto
Photo / Andrea Signoretto Hand / Giorgio Laboratore
Workshop / Abadir
Year / 2014
Workshop in food design. The objective of the workshop was to explore the various phases of the project, from the development of a concept to the realization of the model, all starting from a common theme, namely that of chocolate as a "form of chocolate." Design a new form is also a way to practice on changes, or those slight deviations from the classical form that result in countless variations
Credits
Concept / Vittorio Venezia
tutor / Giorgio Laboratore
Workshop / Abadir in collaboration with Centro Ricerche Fiat
Year / 2014
First phase of the course in car design, developed in collaboration with the Centro Ricerche Fiat.
Credits
Concept / Gianni Pedone, Vittorio Venezia
Project Team / Anna Crocellà, Gianluca Campo, Sarah Borinato, Laura Mercurio, Margherita Pappalardo
Client / Meritalia
Year / 2008
Polyurethane armchair. Different sheets of water-cut foam are glued together and then covered with a rubber spray coating.
Credits
Photo / Meritalia
Competition / Promosedia International Design Competition, Honourable Mention
Year / 2012
The concept underpinning Vinavil is exasperation of glue bonding processes. The idea that characterizes the chair is the breakdown of the work in its individual parts. The elements of the chair cut separately are recomposed into a single harmonic form. Vinavil is made of birch veneer glued curved and finished with transparent acrylic paint
Credits
Concept and design / Vittorio Venezia
Client / Alcantara
Year / 2012
Exhibition / MAXXI, Rome, Italy
A furniture system designed for Alcantara's project Shape your life. The Alcantara has been used in different ways and in different finishes; fabric, embossed, laser-cut, quilted, try to rebuild the striped fabrics reminiscent summer. The sea as a room in the house. Isola project is the design synthesis of this image. The deck becomes a bed under a starry ceiling, the umbrella a lamp that modulates through a manual dimmer sunlight, the shield a wall to hide behind and the wicker a comfortable armchair. The key theme of all these projects is the variability. The objects are transformed to meet the needs of those who use them. Feeling at home also means being able to feel the control of the space around us.
Credits
Concept and design / Vittorio Venezia
Photo / Alessandro Peccati
Client / Hermès
Year / 2008
In 2008, the Weekend bag won the first edition of the Prix Émile Hermès.
Photo / Hermès
Client / Iris ceramiche and Fmg fabbirica marmi e graniti
Year / 2008
Location / Cersaie Bologna, Italy
The stand is made from a sequence of faceted slabs that gradually change shape. The strips are clad in two tiles, one by Iris and one by FMG. Contrasting colours were used from each brand including a mottled blue and green shade from the FMG Nature 2.0 range.
