Designer Desire: Gino Colombini

It was only last week when we bought a vintage bright orange plastic waste paper basket that we learned anything about Gino Colombini.

Gino Colombini (1915-2011) was an Italian product designer who worked primarily in plastic. From 1933 to 1952, he worked in the Milan practice of the architect and designer, Franco Albini. Together, they co-designed the rattan ‘Margherita’ chair in 1951. From 1953 until 1960, Colombini was the first technical director of Kartell for whom he created many domestic products including the waste paper basket that we bought.

His designs are featured in the book Kartell: The Culture of Plastics published by Taschen in 2013.

Colombini won the Compasso d’Oro award on five occasions; 1955, 1957, 1958, 1959 and 1960. The Museum of Modern Art in New York have a number of his designs in their permanent collection.

Our orange bin will shortly be for sale in our space at Valley Antiques in Hebden Bridge. However, if you can’t get over to West Yorkshire, you can often find examples of his products on 1stDibs, Bukowskis and Etsy.

_credit

Additional image credits:
Bukowskis | Pinterest

Designer Desire: Alberto Ponis

Last week, we featured Michele Busiri Vici, the man responsible for designing many of the beautiful villas in the area of Sardinia we visited recently. Another architect with breath-taking buildings in the same area is Alberto Ponis.

In the early 1960s, Alberto Ponis (b. 1933) worked in London with Erno Goldfinger and Sir Denys Lasdun (working with the latter on the National Theatre on the city’s South Bank). In 1964, he set up his own studio in Sardinia.

There’s a monograph entitled, The Inhabited Pathway: The Built Work of Alberto Ponis in Sardinia, which features eight of his projects built between 1965 and 1998. In it, Ponis explains:

I began to arrange houses in such a way that I could place particular emphasis even on just a single massive block of granite, or on a Mediterranean macchia hedge, or on an old cork oak tree… The footprint of the house, when the spaces are very narrow, coincides with the creation of its plan, which simply cannot be born on the drawing board… When a rock remains as if imprisoned inside the house, then the integration is complete and the client is happy. The architect is too, as he hasn’t had to invent anything except what already existed.

Another book, Alberto Ponis: Architettura in Sardegna by Sebastiano Brandolini, covers 40 of the architect’s buildings created between the 60s and the present day.

The Right Rock, Alberto Ponis from corradocattinari on Vimeo

Image credits:

Designer Desire: Michele Busiri Vici

_{Villa Olivastri, Porto Rafael}

We spent a week and a bit in Sardinia last month; as well as the landscape and the beaches, the thing that we enjoyed looking at the most was the architecture. After a bit of online research, we discovered that Michele Busiri Vici was the man who was responsible for many of the buildings in the area.

Rome-born Michele Busiri Vici (1894-1981) descended from generations of architects and town planners. He designed the award-winning Italian Pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. He’s credited as being the creator of the ‘Mediterranean Style’ of architecture; consisting of organic, white-washed forms, terra-cotta floor and roof tiles and incorporating the landscape into the interior.

He was one of the architects commissioned by the Aga Khan to create Porto Cervo and the Costa Smeralda – a playground for the Aga Khan and his wealthy, international jet-set friends.

A few years later in the 1960s in Porto Rafael, (the village on the north eastern coast of Sardinia where we stayed) he was commissioned by Raphael Neville, Count of Berlanga de Duero to design the Piazzetta and the Chapel of Saint Rita. He also designed various private villas in the pretty coastal resort.

_{La Piazzetta, Porto Rafael}

_{Chapel of Saint Rita, Porto Rafael}

_{Church Stella Maris, Porto Cervo}

_{Hotel Romazzino, Porto Cervo}

_{Michele Busiri Vici (left) with the Aga Khan, Porto Cervo, 1963

credit}

Designer Desire: Enzo Mari

Enzo Mari is an Italian product designer who is, in our opinion, under-valued and -appreciated. He’s a life-long communist and infamous firebrand known for his staunch views on design and life in general. “Design is dead” and “form is everything” are statements made during his regular outbursts.

He states that during his design process, he’s more interested in pleasing the factory worker than the consumer. Evidence of this can be seen in his 1973 Proposta per un’autoprogettazione – a manual for creating a collection of basic, DIY furniture simply using plain planks of wood and nails.

He’s produced designs for brands such as Driade, Poltronova, Alessi, KPM Berlin and, most famously, Danese Milano. It was only when researching Mari that I discovered he designed the ‘Mama’ range for Le Creuset in 1972.

Many of his designs are still in production and are available from Houzz and Made in Design, Vintage and discontinued examples are for sale at Connox, eBay, Etsy and Pomono.

_credit

Additional image credits:

1st Dibs

H is for Home Harbinger

Tag: Italy

Designer Desire: Gino Colombini

Designer Desire: Alberto Ponis

Designer Desire: Michele Busiri Vici

Designer Desire: Enzo Mari