This year, the Flos factory is 50 years old. On the occasion of the round date, Giovanna Castiglioni, Vice-President of the Foundation Achille Castiglioni and the daughter of the legendary designer, who designed more than a dozen lamps for Flos, came to Moscow. They are still in production.
Passing the gallery A photo: - press services, Pavel Pshenichny
Interview prepared: Daria Samoilova
Magazine: N11 (177) 2012
Tell us how cooperation between FLOS and Achille Castiglioni began?
Giovanna Castiglioni: It all started with a small company that was opened by Arturo Eisenkeil in northern Italy. He was engaged in import from the USA of a cocoon synthetic material. In America, this polymer was used for military purposes. Eisenkeil began to produce lamps from it. He joined forces with the designer Dino Gavin, who was familiar with the artist Lucho Fontana, and he knew the brothers Castiglioni, Pierre Giacomo and Achille. In 1960, they created the first polymer lamps from cocoon - Gatto, Viscontea and Taraxacum. The technology is that the polymer spray is applied to a rotating steel frame. The material has an interesting surface, which feels like Japanese rice paper to the touch, and externally looks like a spider's web. FLOS, born in 1962, became the successor to this technology, but the Castiglioni brothers remained its creative force. In 1968, the eldest died, Pierre Giacomo, and the younger, Achille, remained with the factory for life. It was the design of the lamps that brought him the greatest success.
SALON: What else did he design?
- Castiglioni received an architect diploma in 1944. And he began with architecture. For example, together with his brother he restored the Palazzo della Permanente, which was destroyed during the bombing, which they turned into the first Milan skyscraper. Everyday life also needed to be restored. Achille Castiglioni designed furniture, watches, lamps, cutlery, ashtrays, switches, audio, vacuum ...
S: What is the specificity of his design method?
“Each Castiglioni project is a solution to a specific problem. Take, for example, a Gibigiana lamp designed specifically for night reading. Achille Castiglioni loved to read before bedtime, but the bright light interfered with his wife. Then he invented a lamp, the flow of light which is directed to one point. How is it arranged? The light source is hidden inside the metal case. The round reflector with a mirror surface reflects light and is regulated by means of a special wheel. Scrolling through it can zoom in or out. This idea with a mirror reflector, he spied in children, allowing sunbeams. Achille Castiglioni had a talent for finding solutions in everyday life. The musical babin led him to the idea that the table lamp cable can be wound around a round base like a magnetic film (Lampadina model). And the hair ties, which I, playing, put on the glass, suggested the idea of a protective silicone rim for the Fucsia lamp. In the most ordinary objects, he knew how to see a new function.
