Alessi - Company Profile
5 September 2011 - The Alessi company was founded by Giovanni Alessi in 1921 at Omegna, a village on Lake Orta in the foothills of the Alps near Novara. Giovanni was a skilled lathe turner, the last of a long line of craftsmen from the nearby Valle Strona valley.During the 1920s and 30s, tableware and household objects were made at his workshop in copper, brass and nickel silver with exquisite crafts skill. Many of the different objects produced in this first period (such as the nickel silver tea and coffee service from 1921, the nickel-coated brass flask holder from 1926 and the cheese tray in fine nickel silver with milk glass from 1929) have become part of the collective memory of generations of Italians... read more...
Last press releases
Spring/Summer 2012 Press Release
17 February 2012 - After the abundance of projects presented in the previous year, the roughly forty projects launched during 2011 mark a return to our customary and more limited number of new ideas.I find that this new collection shows a good balance between the three brands:
In “A di Alessi”, Venturini’s “All-Time” table set complete with plates, glasses and cutlery adopts the theme of formal fluidity that the designer loves, and the 1-cup “Moka Alessi” espresso maker completes Mendini’s successful range of articles.
“Alessi” contains not only the two electrical appliances (Sapper’s pepper mill and Giovannoni’s blender) and the vase by the Fuksas, but also a collection of small items for the kitchen (Gasparini’s knives, a knife block and breadboard, the “Savon du chef” by Frederic Gooris) and dining/living room (the aperitif set by Giulio Iacchetti, Inga Sempé’s risotto serving spoon, Milton Glaser’s “Cork presenter”)… Plus four projects along an entirely new line: the exploration of an area bordering on our usual household one - lighting! I’m sure we can do good things in this new field, and I’ve decided to enter it with some degree of precision. For the time being, I’ve chosen four beautiful projects from the many we’ve got lined up. They display four very different approaches, which means that they’re absolutely in keeping with the Alessi world.
The other major new presentation under the “Officina Alessi” are the results of the “(UN)FORBIDDEN CITY” project. This was our first exploration into Chinese design: eight trays and containers conceived by eight different architects selected among the most interesting exponents of contemporary architecture in that country, leading us into a new world and a new culture, as fascinating as it is distant, mysterious and promising… read more...
Fall/Winter 2011 Press Release
30 September 2011 - At the Spring-Summer launch in early 2011, following a year in which the Crusinallocompany had introduced over 100 new projects to the market, Alberto Alessi asked
whether “Less is more or More is not less?”, citing the well-known assertions of Mies van
der Rohe in the 1920’s and Robert Venturi in the 1960’s. In the View On catalogue for the new Autumn-Winter 2011 collection, Alberto Alessi poses
a new teaser: Less but better? In this case, he is referring not to design content but rather
to quantity. Alberto Alessi asks if it is not perhaps excessive to keep offering the public a
vast number of products, therefore running the risk that we might lose sight of the value of
each individual piece. read more...
Spring/Summer 2011 Press Release
10 January 2011 - Inaugurated in May 2010 at the Die Neue Sammlung - The International Design Museum in Munich, the Alessi exhibition “Oggetti e Progetti” arrived in the United States in November 2010 and opened under a new title "Ethical and Radical" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Alberto Alessi explains,‘The title alludes to the two extremes between which we plan to direct our research within the new decade. On one hand, as we understand it here at Alessi, "ethical" is the search for a new simplicity, modesty, and sometimes even austerity, in design. On the other hand, "radical" is understood as a continuation, perhaps even an acceleration, of the search for highly expressive forms and decorative elements that, at least from a certain point of view, might be considered over the top.’ read more...
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