Alessi ITM24 Coppa Camuna Centrepiece

The Coppa Camuna stems from the designer’s fascination with the age-old tradition of ironworking rooted in the Valle Camonica, located in the Central Alps between the provinces of Brescia and Bergamo. In Bienno, the ‘village of a thousand forges’, where this archaic craftsman’s knowledge is preserved, Iacchetti found those who could help him develop the project for an iron container. Thus was born a dialogue between the designer and the craftsmen of Bienno, a joint journey that gradually led from an initial design to an initial shape and from this – in a sort of evolution of the species – to the final artefact. The Coppa Camuna has an apparently brutalist form that recalls that of a war helmet but turned upside down towards the sky, transformed into a container ready to hold a flower or to become an instrument of offering. An extraordinary subversion of meaning, in other words, that converts a symbol of war into an artefact of offering. The production process in turn contains a passage of meaning, from strength to offering: the iron, turned with powerful energy and then passed through fire for the final treatment with wax, becomes a poetic object to contain, as its designer says, “the things of life”.

MEASUREMENTS:

• Diameter: 23 cm / 9 inch
• Height: 11 cm / 4.3 inch

MATERIALS:

• Turned carbon steel sheet with beeswax coating

Giulio Iacchetti

Italy, 1966

Giulio Iacchetti, industrial designer since 1992, designs for many brands including Abet Laminati, Alessi, Danese, Elica, Foscarini, Globo Ceramiche, Jannelli&Volpi, Hastens, Magis, Meritalia, Moleskine, Pandora design. The distinctive characteristics of his work is the research and definition of new object typologies, like the Moscardino, the biodegradable spoon/fork designed with Matteo Ragni and for which, in 2001, he has been awarded with Compasso d’Oro.

In 2009 he was awarded the prize for innovation – Premio dei Premi – by the President of the Italian Republic for the Coop Eureka project, which brought the design in the large-scale retail trade. In May 2009 the Triennale di Milano held a solo exhibition entitled “Giulio Iacchetti. Disobedient objects “. In November 2012 he launches Internoitaliano, the “factory network” made up of many craftsmen labs with whom he signs and produces furniture and accessories inspired by the italian way of living.

He had also pursued his personal research project into new design topics such as the symbol of cross from which came the exhibition titled Cruciale held by the Diocesan Museum, Basilica di Santo Stefano Rotondo in Rome and by Castello di Lombardia in Enna, Sicily. In 2014, he won his second Compasso d’Oro for the design of the manhole covers Sfera, designed with Matteo Ragni for Montini.

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