Eyewear material inspires limited edition furnishings for the home
A new exhibition by Italian designer Giovanni Botticelli explores a classic Italian eyewear material by the well-known company Mazzucchelli in the design of objects for the home.
By revisiting a material he knows well, cellulose acetate, the designer combines concepts, design, and formal purity with focus on welding and bending techniques. He mixes two or more colours by joining acetate slabs through compressed acetone. Thermal bending is the technique commonly used for curved-front eyewear. The colour palette also draws on independent eyewear design, with chic clean contrasts between tan, transparent monochromes, and opaline hues.
The installation resulting from this in-depth investigation is presented as a scaled transposition of architecture’s typical expressions and forms, suggesting correspondences between essential style codes and pure geometric shapes. Displayed in the gallery are wall bookcases, tables, and boxes — furnishings conceived as places where memories dwell, places meant to safeguard the precious memory of our things.
In Botticelli’s collection, the absolute precision of design meets experimentation to raise the material’s creative potential. The HABITAT collection was designed exclusively for SWING Design Gallery and produced in a limited and numbered edition.
The design project is supported by Mazzucchelli 1849 (www.mazzucchelli1849.it), the historic company in Castiglione Olona founded in 1849 as a small factory for the production of horn and bone combs and buttons. It went on to become a world leader in the production and distribution of cellulose acetate.
About Giovanni Botticelli
Giovanni Botticelli was born in Rome in 1987. He studied Product Design at IED Rome (European Design Institute) from 2006 to 2009, focusing on eyewear design and the craft and industrial processing of ceramics, glass and sheet metal. He expanded his technical expertise through training at ENSA Limoges and Abate Zanetti Murano. Since 2009, he has worked with companies throughout Italy, designing and overseeing the production of eyewear and sunglasses for Mondelliani and other brands exhibiting at international fairs. In 2010, his design for the Oled lighting systems for PPML was chosen for the ADI Codex Lazio publication and won the competition put on by Alstom in collaboration with IED. After his thesis project, he developed products for DMG Spa’s collaborations with Schindler Group and Otis Elevator Company. In 2016, he took part in the Salone Satellite in Milan and started to work at IED as an assistant and teacher. For further details: www.swingdesigngallery.it / www.giovannibotticelli.eu CN
The exhibition is open until 31 July 2019 in Benevento, Italy. Photography by Danilo Donzelli – www.danilodonzelli.com.