RicordandoPier Giacomo Castiglioni

Testimonianze rese
a Giorgina Castiglioni

Un buon progetto comune di Alberto Bassi e Fiorella Bulegatoo

I fratelli Livio e Pier Giacomo, poi Achille, laureati in architettura, lavorano in studio assieme dalla fine degli anni Trenta all’inizio della seconda guerra mondiale, collaborando a progetti nel campo dell’architettura, dell’allestimento e dell’Industrial Design. Dai primi anni Cinquanta Pier Giacomo e Achille continuano l’attività, in un sodalizio che si interrompe nel 1968. Da quel momento Achille, che ha cinquant’anni, prosegue l’attività progettuale con importanti lavori nel campo dell’Interior, Exhibition e Industrial Design.
Come si può scrivere di Pier Giacomo senza par- lare di Achille?
Come si può parlare e scrivere di Achille senza parlare di Pier Giacomo?
E allora, a questo punto, bisogna in qualche modo ricominciare di nuovo. Molto è stato fatto in termini scientifici, molto rimane da approfondire: ricerche, studi, libri, mostre e ancora altro
su Pier Giacomo e Achille Castiglioni in attività insieme dal 1938 al 1968.
È giunto li momento di tornare a indagare, ad esempio ripartendo dalle fonti originali depositate presso gli archivi pubblici e delle famiglie, di fornire valutazioni storico-critiche competenti e
multidisciplinari sul loro lavoro, di ragionare puntualmente attorno ai contributi specifici, ai modi dell’operare comune e ai rapporti con le imprese, la cultura del periodo e i contesti.
Dedicando tempo e pazienza, ricucendo relazioni, intenzioni e interessi che di certo non possono essere distanti se l’obiettivo comune è quello di far conoscere e valorizzare al meglio li lavoro di due fratelli che hanno fatto la storia del design nel mondo.
Tempo, pazienza, ricerca, studio, un buon progetto comune.

Come facevano Pier Giacomo e Achille.

Testimonies shared with
Giorgina Castiglioni

A good joint project by Alberto Bassi and Fiorella Bulegato

The brothers Livio and Pier Giacomo, and later Achille, graduated in architecture and worked in the studio together from the late 1930s to the beginning of the Second World War, collaborating on projects in the field of architecture, outfitting and industrial design. From the early 1950s Pier Giacomo and Achille resumed this work, in a partnership that was interrupted in 1968. From then on, Achille, who was fifty at the time, continued the design activity with important works in the field of interior, exhibition and industrial design.
How can you write about Pier Giacomo without talking about Achille?
How can one speak and write about Achille without talking about Pier Giacomo?
And then, at this point, we somehow have to start over again. Much has been done in scientific terms, much remains to be explored: research, studies, books, exhibitions and more on Pier Giacomo and Achille Castiglioni working together from 1938 to 1968.
The time has come to resume research, starting with original sources in public and family archives for example, to provide expert and multidisciplinary historical-critical assessments of their work, to reflect carefully on their specific contributions, ways of working together and relations with companies, the culture of the period and the contexts.
Dedicating time and patience, and reconciling relationships, intentions and interests that must surely by aligned if the common goal is to promote and shine light on the work of two brothers who have made global design history.
Time, patience, research, study: a good joint project.
That is how Pier Giacomo and Achille worked.

My first memory of Pier Giacomo Castiglioni dates back to 1948, when I was attending the Elements of Composition course at the Faculty of Architecture in Milan.
The professor of that course was the architect Mancini; although certainly not a representative of the Modern Movement, today he would be more highly regarded for the Feltrinelli villa built in Liguria.
In those days, the course was conducted through ex tempore projects, carried out once a week in the faculty classrooms and lasting for an entire day.
I had found a way to produce coloured drawings using small containers with tempera colours that I had prepared in advance and that I would dissolve in a little water just before use.
This technique of mine was very successful and naturally many students imitated it.
At the end of the course, they needed to determine who had been the first one to have the idea and here, perhaps, Pier Giacomo’s contribution was decisive and I was the only one to receive the maximum mark (Thirty).
The following year, Pier Giacomo Castiglioni was the professor of the course, and I remember that, again for an ex-tempore project, whose theme was an entrance to the Milan Arena of the European Athletics Championships, I made a model of it using cardboard and photographs.
As soon as he saw it, Massimo Vignelli asked a photographer to come over and this is why I still have the images of the model.
The year concluded with a project done at home, whose theme was a school.
I remember buying a book by Maria Montessori to gain more information on the topic.
The meetings with the professor were fascinating because he was very kind and understanding and, above all, because you always learned something when talking and discussing with him.
That period marked the beginning of my deep regard for Pier Giacomo as a master of design.
Looking back, the Italian designers who have contributed most to my education have been: Franco Albini, Carlo Scarpa and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni.
The connection I had with Albini was based on a great esteem for his rigour and the constant poetic aspect of his works.
As regards Carlo Scarpa, with whom I had become great friends over time, I was fascinated by the beauty of his projects and of his drawings, and a certain connection with modern figurativeness.
As for Pier Giacomo, I had been struck by a project from the 1930s-1940s, the Phonola 5 valve radio receiver, which was designed in collaboration with his brother Livio and with Caccia Dominioni, but in which I detected the important contribution of his hand, especially in the plastic relationship between the base and the inclined plane of the controls and the organic development of the loudspeaker element.
Of the later period, I will remember at least a few works that particularly impressed me, in addition to the many works of at least equal value.
First, the Arco lamp, produced in 1962 by Flos. The lamp solves the problem of bringing light to the centre of a room without a ceiling attachment. The wide curve of the support consists of a series of metal tubes with a rectangular cross section that fit into each other to adjust the light position in different ways. The base, of considerable weight, is a marble parallelepiped with a circular hole for inserting a rod in it and moving the lamp easily. Having been so successful, this lamp was imitated countless times, with none of these emulations coming close to the level of the original.
The new idea in the Taccia lamp, produced by Flos in 1962, was to use reflected light for a table lamp: a glass element, with a parabolic shape, rests and rotates on a metal base which houses the light source. The glass part is closed by a curved metallic element that reflects the light. The shape of the column resembles the cooling fins of an engine. The final result is a new type of lighting on a work surface providing a pleasant effect of diffused light with no annoying shadows.
The Spinamatic Splugen Brau beer tap was made by Poretti in 1964. It is one of Pier Giacomo Castiglioni’s objects that has impressed me the most because in it, in its form so rich in flowing volumes and plastic impact, I can clearly see the gestures of the person who shaped it.
Some critics have chosen to place it in the Neo Liberty movement, of which I have also been part. I, on the other hand, prefer to include it among the Baroque impulses that appear from time to time in the evolution of every artistic movement.
Finally, the Snoopy lamp, produced by Flos in 1962, whose very name reveals another characteristic of Pier Giacomo, namely the sense of irony associated with the ludic aspect of designing. The cylindrical marble base, arranged in an inclined position, supports the light bulb as well as a circular glass diffuser on which rests the aluminium reflector with a complex shape, designed to direct the flow of light to a particular area of the work surface.
I could analyze other works by Pier Giacomo – he conceived so many ideas and then designed them with his expert hand – but for now I would like to highlight the fact that he belonged to an important family of artists, the way it used to happen in Italy during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
The father of this family was the sculptor Giannino Castiglioni, and the message of the group is still being carried on by the more recent generations. Here I cannot fail to mention at least Pier Giacomo’s daughter, Giorgina, who asked me to write these notes in memory of her father and is now a very dear friend of mine, and who also has distinguished herself in the family’s creative tradition.

Giotto Stoppino

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