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Michele De Lucchi is an extremely productive and multi-sided designer. His career developed less within the framework of a single design discipline. He moves between furniture, interior design, lighting, and architecture, alternating between the different fields.
He created computers for Olivetti, table lamps for Artemide, doorknobs for Valli Columbo, and tape dispensers for Pelikan. In addition, he designed exhibitions, banks in Germany, apartment houses in Japan, chairs, vases, and office furniture.
Born in Ferrara in 1951, he studied architecture in Florence and founded the "Gruppe Cavart" in Padua while still a student, propagateing radical designing.
He taught industrial design at the University of Florence during the mid-1970s and became one of Ettore Sotsass' closest colleagues and friends. Afterwards, De Lucchi was employed by Olivetti as a design consultant. Together with Sotsass, he designed the "Icarus" office furniture series for Olivetti and decorated Fiorucci shops all over the world.
De Lucchi's sense of colour and playful forms is especially expressed in his designs for everyday items as well as in his furniture designs such as the Kristall sideboard he designed for Memphis in 1981 which recalls a four-legged animal.
He is a versatile designer who creates objects that impress with their faultless elegance, straight-forwardness and meticulous manufacturing. As example is the well-known table lamp Ptolemeo, which was awarded with the Compasso d'Oro.
The activities of his own Milan studio range from industrial and furniture design to interior design. Vistosi, Haworth, Fontana Arte, Artemide, RB Rossanan, Arflex, Acerbis, and Bodum are among his many customers.
His many international design awards include: Compasso d' Oro, G-Mark (Good Design), Japan; Design Plus; Design Team of the Year, Deutschland, 1997; IF Design Award, Hannover, Smau.
Haworth commissioned the designer to create an office furniture series in 1999. The project was based on scientific results of the DEGW and was produced in co-operation with Haworth Italy. |
