Crossing Boundaries Lecture: Giulio Iacchetti

Monday, February 5 at 7pm: Fire Station Cinema

Tuesday, February 6 at 1pm: VCUarts Qatar’s Atrium

In his lectures at the Fire Station Cinema and at VCUarts Qatar’s Atrium, award-winning Italian industrial designer Giulio Iacchetti will talk about concepts and drawings, about his love for modularity and archetypes, and about the relationship between artisans and inclusive projects to describe a very Italian way of making industrial design. This is a journey made of process images, prototypes and finished products with specific references to the Masters who inspired his work: Enzo Mari, Angelo Mangiarotti and the Castiglioni brothers.

Giulio Iacchetti, who has worked as an industrial designer since 1992, has designed for many brands including Abet Laminati, Alessi, Artemide, Ceramiche Refin, Danese, Fontana Arte, Foscarini, Magis, Moleskine, and Pandora design. The distinctive characteristics of his work are the research and definitions of new object typologies, like the Moscardino, the biodegradable spoon/fork he designed with Matteo Ragni and for which, in 2001, he was awarded Italy’s most prestigious industrial design award, the Compasso d’Oro. In 2009, he was awarded the Premio dei Premi prize for innovation by the President of Italy, for the Coop Eureka project, which brought the design in the large-scale retail trade.

In May 2009 the Triennale di Milano hosted an exhibition of his designs, titled, “Giulio Iacchetti. Disobedient objects”. In November 2012 he launched Internoitaliano, a “factory network” which includes many artisans with whom he designs and produces furniture and accessories that are inspired by the Italian way of living. He has also pursued his personal research projects which look at new design topics such as the symbol of the cross, and which later led to an exhibition, titled, “Cruciale” that took place at the Diocesan Museum, Basilica di Santo Stefano Rotondo in Rome, and at Castello di Lombardia in Enna, Sicily.

In January 2015 he curated the “K-ration” exhibition. A K-ration is a military combat food ration. The exhibition, which reflected on essential and anonymous military design, took place at the Milano Triennale. In 2014, he won his second Compasso d’Oro for his designs of manhole covers called “Sfera” (the Italian word for sphere), which he designed with Matteo Ragni for Montini.