Client / Fenix
Year / 2024
An ironic interpretation of the traditional ping pong table.
Match is a circular ping pong table designed for Fenix Scenario on the occasion of the "Design Duo Double Feature" project curated by Federica Sala. Its shape ironically alludes to that of a common dining table, with a stylized net in the center created by two sheets of Fenix combined with metal that rise up where they meet, suggesting the idea that after a meal, diners could challenge each other to a game.
When we were involved in this project, the goal was to offer a new vision of this material with multiple properties, and the theme of the curve seemed to us an interesting point of view.
The tabletop, the supporting base, and the paddles are characterized by the alternation of the two colors Bianco Malé and Rosso Namib, which refer to the dualism of function/dysfunction, conviviality/conflict, and formal/informal in a dynamic play of contrasts.
Credits and technical information
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Materials / Fenix combined with metal
Photo / Claudia Zalla
Client / Lithea
Year / 2024
Our iron and pietra lavica modular bookcase combines elegance with versatility. Crafted meticulously, each module offers functionality and aesthetic appeal. With stackable and interchangeable modules, the bookcase allows endless customization for any space and style. Constructed from durable iron and luxurious pietra lavica, it ensures longevity while complementing any interior setting. From contemporary spaces to classic libraries, our modular bookcase adds refinement and functionality. It embodies timeless design and versatility, seamlessly integrating form and function.
Credits and technical information
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Materials / Iron Module and Pietra Lavica, Verde Alpi
Dimensions / single tiles 80x36.2x80 cm
Photo / Nino Bartuccio
Client / Lispi
Year / 2024
A square-section iron profile outlines a bed with a rigorous character and curves, in a gentle gesture, just before it rests on the floor. It draws inspiration from the Sicilian “trispiti” of the past, with iron trestles on which the boards rested, serving as a base for the mattress.
The bed design also integrates two bedside tables, thanks to the extended length of the profile near the headboard. Further design attention is distinct in the canopy joints, concealed within a braided knot placed at the four corners of the bed.
Credits and technical information
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Materials / Iron, natural finishing
Dimensions / 177x205x207h cm
Photo / Francesca Ferrari
Client / Lithea
Year / 2024
The surface draws inspiration from the topographic maps of territories: expandable and customizable with new portions of landscapes,
Geografia is a tribute to the concept of infinite design inspired by Superstudio’s “continuous monument.”
A modular grid of square slabs measuring 6x6 cm each is three-dimensionally sculpted with stylized relief of the ground and seabeds of terrestrial portions, particularly chosen from those of Sicily: the slabs are then reassembled in random combinations, creating constantly different designs and conveying a dynamic effect.
Credits and technical information
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Materials / Bianco Fenice, Pietra Lavica, Verde Alpi, Calacatta
Dimensions / single tiles 320x320 cm
Photo / Nino Bartuccio
Client / Lithea
Year / 2024
Arcipelago is a collection of a table, a stool, and two small tables characterized by essential and rigorous geometry. The project is designed to offer the possibility of customization and future expansions with new pieces.
Credits and technical information
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Materials / Bianco Fenice, Pietra Lavica, Verde Alpi, Calacatta
Dimensions /
Arcipelago table / 104 x 104 x h 76 cm - Arcipelago high coffee table / 45 x 45 x h 45 cm - Arcipelago low coffee table / 102 x 82 x h 25 cm
Arcipelago medium coffee table / 82 x 64 x h 32 cm - Arcipelago stool / 82 x 64 x h 32 cm
Photo / Nino Bartuccio
Client / ADI Design Museum for “Carissimo Pinocchio. Designer e grafici italiani ridisegnano il burattino più famoso del mondo”, an exhibition curated by Giulio Iacchetti
Year / 2023 - 2024
Nocicchio is a Pinocchio created from a piece of solid walnut, finely carved on a lathe. What distinguishes him are his legs, which are extraordinarily long. This detail seems to be a contradiction for this character, given the proverb which says that “lies have short legs”. In fact, his long legs symbolize his ambition to overcome everyday obstacles with honesty, thereby teaching us that sincerity helps us move beyond everyday challenges and build meaningful connections.
Credits
Concept and design / Martinelli Venezia
Material / walnut wood
Production / Somaschini
Client / ADI Design Museum for “Carissimo Pinocchio. Designer e grafici italiani ridisegnano il burattino più famoso del mondo”, an exhibition curated by Giulio Iacchetti
Exhibition set up / Krea sas di Massimo Marelli & C
Graphic design / Federica Marziale Iadevaia
Photo / Michele Nastasi
Client / One To One
Year / 2023
(conceived in 2016, presented in 2020, and produced in 2023)
Designed with Alessandro Stabile
Hyper-seriality, sustainability, and democratic nature.
One To One presents its first product, OTO Chair, a chair inspired by the circular economy that implements a fully sustainable approach and supply chain. The chair, made of recycled plastic, is produced using a single mould, a third of the size of traditional moulds, and sold by optimising all production stages, from logistics to transportation. The chair can be purchased online and arrives at the buyer’s address within a day, disassembled inside an eco-friendly flat package, just like the product it contains.
OTO Chair is a minimalist and industrial icon, democratic and very easy to assemble: the assembly is an intuitive interlocking system that does not require screws or inserts of any kind.
Credits
Concept and Design / Alessandro Stabile and Martinelli Venezia
Photo / Ozone
to buy in onetooneobjects.com
Client / Pulkra
Year / 2023
Compage is a modular system of small concrete tabletop accessories, designed by Martinelli Venezia studio for Pulkra, conceived to be used in different settings. Its use of concrete as an expressive material evokes the aesthetics of brutalist architecture: rational and essential, yet still possessing its own expressive plasticity, which imbues the object with a certain formal strength.
The term Compage has Latin roots and means "structure, union", and was chosen because the elements that make up the collection can be assembled and arranged in multiple ways to create a unique and personalized structure. Two container trays, a candlestick, and an incense holder are all characterized by very thin thicknesses thanks to Pulkra's meticulous processing techniques, giving the project both visual and constructive lightness.
Credits
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Materials / Concrete
Visuals / Michele Poletto
Photo /
Client / Lithea
Year / 2023
Rectangular stone table, characterized by a base in the shape of a parallelepiped with a hole in the centre. Slabs of Pietra Pece and Travertine two centimetres thick are placed side by side, glued together, as if they were geological stratifications. The name is inspired by the Sicilian archaeological site, in the province of Syracuse, which in Greek means “place full of stones” or in Arabic Buntarigah “place full of caves”, due to the presence of multiple natural and artificial caves.
Credits and technical information
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Materials / Travertine and Pietra Pece
Dimensions / 90x36xh44 cm
Photo / Nino Bartuccio
Client / Artopiagallery for “Dove la terra incontra il cielo”, an exhibition curated by Giulia Bortoluzzi and hosted in the Trullo Rubina, Contrada Menzella, Ceglie Messapica (BR)
Year / 2022
The five tables of due meters in diameter are of irregular shape and made up of a steel mirror-like plane surface. This big circle, anchored to the earth, reflects the sky and the light sparking a reunion with the surrounding landscape. The technical knowledge of production, testified by these artifacts, blends with the natural landscape enhancing and highlighting its peculiarity.
Credits
Concept and design / Martinelli Venezia
Photo / Marino Colucci
Client / Lithea
Year / 2022
Result of a research on the control of light through stone. The project consists of a wall lamp and a table lamp with a sculptural shape in which, simply by touching the marble surface with the hand, it is possible to switch on, off and modulate the intensity of the light source.
Isola delle Correnti, so named in homage to the small rounded island on the Ionian coast of Sicily. The table version consists of two parts, both CNC-cut and hand-finished in all their details: a solid base with a curved section that supports a thin cnc-sculpted cap on which there is a slight flat area that invites you to touch. This is a useful gesture for the functioning of the object but also to appreciate every time the stone, a precious natural material par excellence.
Credits
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Photo / Nino Bartuccio
Client / Lithea
Year / 2022
Result of a research on the control of light through stone. The project consists of a wall lamp and a table lamp with a sculptural shape in which, simply by touching the marble surface with the hand, it is possible to switch on, off and modulate the intensity of the light source.
Isola delle Correnti, so named in homage to the small rounded island on the Ionian coast of Sicily. The table version consists of two parts, both CNC-cut and hand-finished in all their details: a solid base with a curved section that supports a thin cnc-sculpted cap on which there is a slight flat area that invites you to touch. This is a useful gesture for the functioning of the object but also to appreciate every time the stone, a precious natural material par excellence.
Credits
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Photo / Nino Bartuccio
Client / DeCastelli
Year / 2022
More than mere furniture, the Efesto stool is a sculpture for the home which exalts the brand’s manufacturing capabilities: by curving and bending sheet metal, brass is manually shaped and hammered to create its unique triangular cross section. The polished finish further highlights its sinuous shape.
Entirely without mechanical joints, Efesto’s ability to support heavy weights is created through its meticulously designed structure. Technical savoir-fair and the intrinsic qualities of brass elevate it beyond a functional object to a unique, sophisticated design piece.
Credits
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Photo / Alberto Parise
Client / Lithea
Year / 2023
Greche is a Travertine marble panel with Pietra Pece applications, consisting in a modular design with overlapping bands, greatly inspired by the Geometric Style of ceramics developed in the 8th century BC in Attica and Magna Graecia. This Style was characterized by a dense pictorial decoration in black paint that covered each vase like a meticulous embroidery. This theme was then applied in all fields of ornamentation, from fabrics to architecture, expressing the taste for rational composition, perfect symmetry, rhythmic order and the search for harmony based on simple geometric forms to which the Classics aspired.
The elements used in the decoration of the Greche panel are cylindrical in shape and are reminiscent of the gutte (guttae in Latin) or drops: the ornamental motif that hangs below the mutulae of the cornice and the regulae of the frieze found on the trabeations of the Doric order. The ornaments of classical Greek architecture correspond to elements that were functional in the wooden and terracotta architecture of the Archaic period. The mutulae and regulae symbolically represent the piece of wood through which the ‘cavicchi’ (i.e. wooden nails or pins) were threaded to fix the rafters, following the inclination of the roof. The drop is thus metaphorically a reproduction in stone of such ‘cavicchi’ used when the trabeation was made of wood.’
The design of the Greche panel is a reinterpretation that brings the decorative series of the same name back into the contemporary world. These, in fact, united by a modular matrix, become a collection of designs that can be extended infinitely, a frame of sorts with patterns that can change as required. The design consists in two layers of different stones emphasising the pattern through CNC machining.
Credits and technical information
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Materials / Travertine and Pietra Pece
Dimensions / single tiles 20x20 cm
Photo / Nino Bartuccio
Client / InternoItaliano
Year / 2021
Enna is an oil cruet, inspired by tradition and handcrafted. It is a tribute to the famous “Calderai” street in Palermo, a historic and famous “craft street” still populated today by tinsmiths and metalworkers. Enna is part of a range of a hundred oil cruets that will become part of the collection of Officine Calderai, a micro museum of metalworking soon to open, located in the Jewish quarter in the homonymous street located in the historic centre of Palermo. Enna has an upper flaring that resembles that of a funnel and thanks to which it is possible to refill the oil cruet very easily.
Credits and technical information
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Handcrafted / Paolo Tabbona
Materials / Contoured and welded steel
Client / Lithea
Year / 2021
Small, stone tables in different sizes and shapes, recognizable by their unique curved lines which resemble smooth pebbles with flint-like areas, placed one on top of the other like balancing building blocks on the seashore. They are named after the enigmatic, commemorative buildings, shaped like truncated cones or more precisely like the typical Sesi buildings found around Pantelleria island.
From a more formal view they represent a true technical challenge in terms of carving the material as a means to hide the thicker areas where the elements join together and also as a way to aesthetically lighten the look.
Credits and technical information
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Materials / Bianco Carrara, Pietra Pece, Pietra Lavica
Dimensions / S 45x45xh40 cm - M 65x40xh32 cm - L 100x51xh26 cm
Photo / Nino Bartuccio
Client / InGalleria / Punta Conterie Art Gallery for “Le Forme del Bere - Forms of Drinking”, an exhibition curated by Elisa Testori
Year / 2022
The project combines two shapes to create a new one, expressly dedicated to tavern wine. Our intention was to offer the house wine, usually young, the possibility of being appreciated like any other wine by the glass. We thought of a formal union between a very common base and stem glass and unintentionally created a stackable shape that resembles a contemporary version of the antique Roemer glass, portrayed in numerous Dutch still lifes of the seventeenth century
Credits
Concept and design / Martinelli Venezia
Collaboration in the project / Giacomo Dubini
Material and Technology / Murano Glass Blowing
Production / Vetreria Fabiano Amadi and Eugenio Panizzi
Client / InGalleria / Punta Conterie Art Gallery for “Le Forme del Bere - Forms of Drinking”, an exhibition curated by Elisa Testori, Coordination by Alessandro Vecchiato
Exhibition design / Veal / Alessandro Vecchiato
Graphic design / Artemio Croatto Erika Pittis (Designwork)
Photo / Francesco Allegretto
Client / Lithea
Year / 2018 - 2021 NEW EDITION
The washbasin is part of the Etna collection: a family of items which intensify the rapport between stone and metal which we started in 2018. Slender metallic legs which create a three-dimensional geometric design hold up the marble basins of tables, stools, vases and other items.
Credits and technical information
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Materials / iron structure varnished with an opaque black powder, basin available in Volcanic stone honed finish or Bianco Carrara
Dimensions / cm
Photo / Nino Bartuccio
Client / Lithea
Year / 2021
Modular, wall covering created by putting together irregularly shaped tiles that once assembled resemble the curved lines painted on the rooftops of the dammusi houses.
Alternating smooth and concave parts with furrowed lines bringing to mind the rows of Pantelleria’s vineyards. Created in homage to the Zibibbo tree that is cultivated in the typical valleys which protect them from the impetuous winds that blow on the island.
The whole design is achieved with identical tiles creating a juxtaposition of the various elements that give the impression of a continuous and never-ending image.
Credits and technical information
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Materials / the surface is available in Grigio Billiemi marble (for the furrowed base) with Pietra Pece inserts (for the flint, sculptured elements), both materials are typical of Sicily.
Dimensions / single tiles 60x60x2 cm
Photo / Nino Bartuccio
Client / Lithea
Year / 2021
Stone, modular wall covering inspired and engraved with typical elements from the Pantelleria landscape. Illustrations of the terracing farming, the blowholes of the favare, the shape of the dammusi rooftops, the rows of Zibibbo have all been reinterpreted as though distant memories and printed on five different tiles that assembled create the finished product.
Credits and technical information
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Materials / available in Nero Maquinia marble and Pietra Lavica (in honour of Pantelleria, the “Black Pearl” of the Mediterranean), Bianco Carrara, Crema Tunisi, Pietra Pece, Pietra Comiso.
Dimensions / single tiles 40x80x2 cm
Photo / Nino Bartuccio
Client / Orografie
Year / 2021
We have always been fascinated by wooden foundry molds: such sophisticated goods, rich in hollows, holes of various diameters, bevels, protuberances or other singular details have aroused our imagination by the countless shapes that can be created with them. We have individuated and arranged these pieces into a sort of catalogue that we then redesigned and used as a declinable language. This is how T1 and T2 were born, two enigmatic and sculptural furnishing elements that we could define as a standard of the domestic space and that we have designed with the intention of stimulating a desire for affection in those who possess an interest in such things: objects to be preserved and handed down from generation to generation.
Credits
Concept and design / Martinelli Venezia
Photo / Max Rommel
Client / Abet Laminati / SuperSuperfici - The Spirit of Memphis (reloaded)
Year / 2021
Exhibition / ADI Design Museum, Milan, Italy
Abet Laminati and its design curators Giulio Iacchetti and Matteo Ragni celebrate the forty years of Memphis with a collective research project. The main topic: rediscovering the meaning of being radical nowadays.
How Memphis design would look if Ettore Sottsass Jr and his associates had founded the movement today, forty years later? How would they have given substance to the radicalism that distinguished the group during its six years of activity from 1981 to 1987?
Superficiale is a collection of furnishings, accessories and lighting that compose a deliberately alienating domestic landscape.
The project will be presented during the exhibition “SuperSuperfici - The Spirit of Memphis (reloaded)” in Milan from 4h to 24th September 2021.
There is a design that reassures and gives certainty, but there is also one that disorients, deliberately disrupting our points of reference. We look at this second approach with Superficiale. The obsessive graphics (reminiscent of the language of Memphis but also of Superstudio) occupy every visible space, generating a microclimate so exasperated as to be almost ironic. In contrast to their functionality, these pieces do not ask to be used but to be looked at, like souls aware of the sense of alienation they inspire. A small laboratory of the uncanny, where things blend in with their skin and in some way desecrate Memphis itself, as well as Superstudio, used not as a tutelary but as a sheet of paper on which to mess around freely.
Credits
Concept and design / Martinelli Venezia
Production / Abet Laminati (Surfaces: digital print HPL + HPL standard ), Emmanuel Zonta (Objects)
Curators of Super Superfici / Giulio Iacchetti, Matteo Ragni
Photos / Max Rommel
Client / DeCastelli
Year / 2021
A small rhomboid-shaped table with storage space. Its simple shape renders it modular: by combining it with other identical elements, either moved around or rotated, numerous configurations can be obtained. The natural copper skin worked using the DeErosion technique creates a diagonal striped pattern that enhances the geometric shape and emphasises the graphic effect. Thanks to the measured proportions and the compositional possibilities, Alpha can fit into any environment and can be used in many different ways. The absence of surface treatment means the antibacterial properties of the copper are preserved intact.
Credits and technical information
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Dimensions / W90xD52xH35 cm
Photo / Alberto Parise
Client / Rita Urso artopiagallery
Year / 2021
Exhibition / Rita Urso artopiagallery, Milan, Italy
UNSERIAL.bulbs is a collection of lights made by glass blowing, designed by Martinelli Venezia studio and realized exclusively for Rita Urso artopiagallery.
The project will be presented during the exhibition “Altri echi” in Milan from 17th June to 24th September 2021. Opening Thursday, June 17, 11 a.m. – 8 p.m.
The collection is a result of research turn to the transformation of a mass production at an artisanal manufacture. On the base of the project there is the attempt to put together two kind of production that generally are contrasting, in order to explore the boundaries between artisanal and industrial, series and one-off, uniformity and variation, ordinary and extraordinary. A product which is extremely standardized and common in all houses, such us a light bulb, it is modified though human act and becomes an unique and unusual object.
Every light is different because it is the result of experimentation of different blowing forms, glazed or lined and then welded together in compositions of an asymmetrical balance.
Credits
Concept and design / Martinelli Venezia
Project assistant / Deniz Söğütlü
Production / Soffieria Villa
Client / Paestum Experience
Year / 2017
Measuring spaghetti tool in marble made bespoke for Paestum Experience.
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.
Credits and technical information
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Dimensions / 140x85x90 mm
Materials / White Carrara, Sunny Oro, Nero Marquinia, Royal Beige, Verde Guatemala, Rosa, Rosso Asiago
Production / Marmi Sacco
Photo / Giorgio Laboratore
Year / 2020
Hyper-seriality, online sales and democratic nature.
In May 2014, we began to discuss the idea of a chair that was representative of the contemporary world, in terms of production technology, sales methods and use features. We wanted to design an iconic, democratic product, meant to be sold online and - in opposition to the return to craftsman- ship and gallery-oriented design - we decided to investigate the theme of hyper-seriality.
After a 5-year design process, Chair 1:1 was born. A mountable/demountable chair, in which all the pieces are moulded in one go, thus optimizing the mould size and the speed of the production process, reducing waste to a minimum as well. The chair is sold just as it comes out of the mould, bypassing several steps; it will be the buyer who will complete the process: this is what we call hyper-seriality.
When looking at the Chair 1:1, it is inevitable to have a blast from the past, remembering the boxed toy kits. As in that case, there are no screws nor bolts: assembly is effortless and immediate. Moun- ting an object makes a bond with it and makes you feel its full value; it builds an affection that stops you from getting rid of it.
It's a product that can be easily stored, shipped and transported: 26 boxed up chairs take up only 1 square metre, and this is key to online sales and in terms of sustainability.
As soon as it is printed, its image has a strong expressive impact; but once mounted, it no longer reveals its productive essence. It's a compact chair, "polite", designed to suit even the most ordinary houses.
The project is a well-structured trade-off between the production system and assembly system. The fastening elements of the individual parts are designed to be easily producible but at the same time extremely resistant.
We did not settle for a mere concept; we engaged in a dialogue with Secostampi and Plastamp (leading companies in the production of moulds and chair moulding) and, thanks to the discussion with them, the shape has evolved up to the current.
While designing, we have often wondered whether in a world saturated with products, it was right to work in the direction of hyper-seriality with a material such as plastic. We believe, however, that the real mistake is to combine it with other materials that make it hard to recycle as well as to use it for packaging or in disposable products.
The best way to make a sustainable product is to extend its lifespan, make it single-material and think about the whole life process. We also wanted a quality yet a democratic product that could replace all those chairs of poor workmanship and durability.
We are glad to share now this research project because we think it could also provide interesting food for thought about industrial design. No longer with the focus on the product as an independent element; but more and more as inseparable from the sales methods, purchase, use and finally disposal.
The 1:1 Chair will also be part of the catalogue and exhibition "The New Domestic Landscape", which aims to explore the current domestic landscape. At first scheduled last March, at Palazzo Ca'Tron (Venice), the exhibition is now postponed after the summer, to a date to be defined.
Credits
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia and Alessandro Stabile
Photo / Stefania Zanetti
Special thanks to / Secostampi-Plastamp for technical support and Sandro Trigila for still-life images
Client / DeCastelli
Year / 2019
This drawer storage unit alludes to the archetypal shape of a vase. Like a modern treasure chest, Pandora was crafted to store - and thus ‘hide’ - all kinds of objects. Multiform in its different versions, from one to six drawers, this piece is versatile enough that it can be transformed into a storage table, bedside table or full chest of drawers, used in varied spaces, from the bathroom to the bedroom or living room. A mysterious, impressive object, Pandora surprises when the drawers, invisible when closed, are revealed.
Credits
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Photo / Alberto Parise
Client / DeCastelli
Year / 2019
Aspirations of higher knowledge find a three-dimensional representation in the striking verticality of this tower bookcase, stripped of all non-essential elements. The svelte modular structure, is available in two diameters and in free-standing or wall-mounted versions. It was inspired by Athanasius Kircher’s legendary depiction of the Tower of Babel, and the giant library of the same name in the short story by Jorge Luis Borges.
Credits and technical information
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Dimensions / Ø 28 cm - Ø 36 cm
Photo / Alberto Parise
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 can be fixed to the wall, suitable for every areas to contain, collect, order, hide.
The secretaire is 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 stool completes the ensemble. A wooden seat placed on a tiny iron structure.
Credits
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Dimensions / secretaire: closed 125x23xh.50 cm / open 125x63xh.40 cm / stool: 50x22xh.45 cm
Photo / © MassimoGardone
Client / Lithea
Year / 2019
The stool is part of the Etna collection: a family of items which intensify the rapport between stone and metal which we started in 2018 when we first introduced the freestanding hand basin by using the same material and technology. Slender metallic legs which create a three-dimensional geometric design hold up the marble basins of tables, stools, vases and other items.
Credits and technical information
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Materials / iron structure varnished with an opaque black powder, top in engraved volcanic stone honed finish
Dimensions / 40x44,5x45h cm
Photo / Nino Bartuccio
Manufactured / Lithea
Year / 2019
Vases collection made of volcanic stone, CNC cut
Credits
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Materials / volcanic stone honed finish
Client / Lithea
Year / 2019
The vases are part of the Etna collection. They are made of volcanic stone honed finish, produced in Italy, closed the Etna Vulcan.
Credits and technical information
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Materials / volcanic stone honed finish
Dimensions / g diam. 11 cm h 16 cm- h diam. 10 cm h 19 cm – i diam. 10 cm h 13 cm – l diam. 10 cm h 11 cm
Photo / Nino Bartuccio
Client / Lithea
Year / 2019
The two coffee tables are part of the Etna collection: a family of items which intensify the rapport between stone and metal which we started in 2018 when we first introduced the freestanding hand basin by using the same material and technology. Slender metallic legs which create a three-dimensional geometric design hold up the marble basins of tables, stools, vases and other items. The tables come in two versions: low and high.
Credits
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Materials / iron structure varnished with an opaque black powder, top in volcanic stone honed finish
Dimensions / low version 67,5x41x40h cm - high version 47x47x61h cm
Photo / Nino Bartuccio
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 and technical information
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 / single tiles 16x32 cm
Photo / Nino Bartuccio
Stylist / Paolo Gagliardi
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 / 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 / Lithea
Year / 2019
Tarsie geometriche is a collection of marble wall and pavement cladding. This decoration is obtained by ‘inserting’ coloured resin filler into an engraved marble surface. This project follows on from the research started last year with the Innesti Mediterranei for which a collection of volcanic stone modular items called Maioliche di Pietra had been presented. The aim of our Maioliche di Pietra collection was to show the richness of the Mediterranean, known for its immensity and variety, through low relief designs. Their three-dimensional, geometric surfaces are reminiscent of the grooved trunks of the columns, the dry, stone walls, the marble blocks extracted from the mines which our company uses and of other traditional iconography of the south. However, for this project we have paid attention to the traditional stone production techniques and in particular to the technique of intarsia. This ancient crafting technique has been reinterpreted by using resin as a filling material, instead of wood, ivory, or other coloured stones which are typically used for multi-material decorations in in-lays. Resin is not an innovation in the field of marble production techniques and it is in fact generally used to repair marble items. However, in our projectTarsie geometriche takes on an aesthetic value. Contrasting colours inserted into the background surface are used in a way that they become the focal point, guaranteeing highly precise results which can be obtained quickly and with ease.
Credits
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Materials / Inlaid volcanic stone, geometric decoration with red enamel and resin, honed finish.
Dimensions / Single slab cm 112x64x2
Photo / Nino Bartuccio
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 round cabinet can be fixed to the wall, suitable for every areas to contain, collect, order, hide.
The central door opens elliptically, following telescopic lanes and guaranteeing the maximum opening of the piece.
Credits
Concept and Design / Martinelli Venezia
Dimensions / 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 / 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 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 / 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
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.
