Italian interior and product designers Jjuice have designed a range of chocolate bars called Lagrange34 for traditional chocolate maker Pasticceria Gertosio of Turin.
The chocolate slabs come six designs, including a map of Turin.
Photos are by Paolo Bramati.
Here's some information about the project from Jjuice:
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In a world where technologies become more exciting by the day, sometimes it may be nice to relax and be cuddled by tradition. But then, when a design studio and a historic confectionery company join forces to create something new, it may happen that even tradition may spur new stimuli.
Since the XVII century, Turin is a city that has been considered one of the Italian realms of chocolate. It is here that, at the end of the XVIII century, Mr. Doret invented a revolutionary machine that could solidify chocolate, allowing it to be moulded in shapes. It is also here that architects Sergio Viotti and Giuliana Succo were born and graduated in architecture.
After their degree they decided to take their chances and left for Tokyo, where they successfully designed corporate offices and trendy shop interiors. This led them to open their own office, Jjuice Architecture and Design, now located in Milan.
As a result of an intense professional experience, they felt the need to embrace a unique challenge: making the cultural heritage of their hometown join forces with the trends of the contemporary design, and produce a new line of innovative products. So they proposed to their long time friend Max Gertosio, heir of what since 1890 was the artisan shop of another great chocolatier, Pietro Viola, to collaborate on the manufacture of a new line of chocolate bars called Lagrange 34 - just like the address of the confectionery shop, named after the mathematician Luigi Lagrange.
This line combines high quality chocolate together with a contemporary design approach, to exploit the potential of chocolate as a design product. "Chocolate" Jjuice says "as an industrial design material has shown astonishing and striking characteristics. Furthermore, it lends itself to the freedom of being transformed in a temporary product, medium of emotions and sensations. It frees the product from being a mere "design-lovers only" object, and moves it into a poetic field: a more humble object that everybody can enjoy".
Following an intense period of testing, Lagrange34 has been introduced at CioccolaTo' 2007, the Turin's International Chocolate Fair. It is available in six basic shapes: four square-shaped (14x14 cm) and two more conventional shapes (14x8 cm and 13x3,5 cm), but new shapes will be introduced periodically.
Gertosio is enthusiastic at the chance of pushing its 100-plus years of experience towards new directions. "Our wish" Jjuice concludes "is to create products that can stir emotions the same way as music or movies do, and we are currently working to create new families of products with a similar philosophy.
We are looking forward to new challenges, so we are now selecting other great manufacturers with whom join forces in the future. As for Lagrange34, it's thrilling to notice that the more we experiment, the more it mingles into the tradition of this city, always looking for creative and revolutionary creations, but still capable of lingering on small, everyday things to savour their most hidden secrets".
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Posted by Rose Etherington