Live from Milan: Michele De Lucchi presents the latest fruits of his ongoing Produzione Privata project, which aims to reinstate a craft sensibility to designed objects.
Shown here are Tavolo Benedetto - an unvarnished oak table designed with Davide Angeli and made by carpenters at Riva1920; the Giona parchment lamp; and Gloria range of suspension and wall lights, designed with Alberto Nason.
Top two images: Tavola Benedetto - versions in two heights. Above: Lampada Giona, a suspended parchment lamp with a metal frame.
Above: Gloria suspension lamp - one of many versions of this laser-cut steel lamp.
A description of the Produzione Privata project and a statement from De Lucchi follow:
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The philosophy
Michele De Lucchi founded Produzione Privata in 1990 in order to design products to live with in our contemporary society using man’s basic tools and talents: the hands and the mind.
The creation finds its expression and refinement in numerous pencil drawings, water-colours and studies. The products are made with the aid of skilled craftsman. Special care is taken to emphasize the innate character of materials such as glass, metal and wood and their particular handcrafting.
The aims
Produzione Privata aims to develop concepts untainted by the industrial logic of production and marketing. Instead, it is allied to a cultural outlook which also involves materials and techniques no longer or not yet of interest to big industry. Operating in close contact helps to inspire tomorrow’s industry whilst also boosting the dignity and prestige of skilled craftsmanship.
The "Laboratori"
The workshops ("Laboratori")are devoted to the processing of a given type of material or to a specific design concept: Murano blown glass, ceramics, metal, wood, Minimal Machines, Ready-made, Pyrex, bent glass.
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Just a little is quite enough
“Poco poco quel poco che basta may sound like an incitement to laziness, a return to Oblomof’s philosophy or an appeal for parsimony at a time of crisis. It is none of these things, though it is certainly a request to curb consumption of non-reproducible goods.
"But not only this. To cut extravagance and raise awareness of our behaviour is certainly necessary, and an exhibition on this topic could be very topical and in tune with a widespread feeling. But poco poco quel poco che basta is much more. And it refers to an attitude to design whereby doing little, changing little and adding little produces much more extraordinary effects than the desire to rebuild the world whenever we embark on a design.
"Poco poco quel poco che basta is a creative method, starting from everything that exists. With small deformations, small displacements and small variations, it makes everything look different, fresh and surprising. It is an invitation to work very carefully in search of minimal rejections, that produce more revolutions than total protest and give more thrust to innovation than a general requestioning of basic knowledge.
"I have applied this system to Produzione Privata for many years. I find it extremely effective and still more so today, when “little" is better than “much", especially if accompanied by a spirit of transgression suffi ciently lucid not to lose touch with other people’s worlds."
- Michele De Lucchi
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