We are having dinner at my hexagonal table. The entire apartment is pitch black. From a solid block of marble emerges a metallic curvature, a thin ondulation carrying a globe of light. Design is a joke, told with a straight face. A truth understood by Castiglioni. The designer is curious. The designer is fascinated with the life of others, with strangers, their odd behaviours, their idiosyncratic quirks, the things that make them unique. In the uniqueness of the individual, the designer designing for one ends up designing for all. His objects are riddles with real answers, the punchlines of functional wit. He designed for people: for living rooms, for piazzas, for the everyday theater of use.
There is a democratic elegance in his work. A joy unafraid of labor. My Arco lamp, that suspended moon of Carrara marble and steel, is a brutalist idea with ballast, a streetlight domesticated, made for our private conversations in the comforting darkness of our homebound date nights. The Mezzadro stool—half tractor, half Dada—asks you to sit, but also to laugh. Always, Castiglioni courts the edge between utility and surprise, seriousness and play. In his hands, the ordinary becomes speculative. A toggle becomes a conversation. It is poetry that allows us to love objects, because we see them for more than function. Design as generosity, cleverness, ridiculousness, reminds us that beauty surrounds us. Better yet, it winks with every flicker of light.
-Ruby Thelot