The figure of the designer/entrepreneur, as you are, has illustrious precedents in the history of Italian design. How was your company born?
I was 22 years old and had just finished my studies. Although I had a passion for mathematics, I started out as a mechanical designer: I started my own company and at the same time I designed lamps. Then, in ’88, I focused on light.
Where did this particular interest come from?
From my most sensitive and artistic part, from the desire – which I still have today – to bring out what I have inside. Then from my father, a person who knew how to build things. And he taught me how to do it. We had built a lamp together, and I had enjoyed the experience. Then, while leafing through an issue of Domus, I came across the work of Ingo Maurer on an advertising page. I got to know him better and was fascinated. It was then that I decided, quite unconsciously, to open a lamp workshop where I would do everything. 24 square meters where I would invent, produce, assemble and display these objects in a small showcase. For me it was everything, something that fulfilled me: the possibility to create, to show. Those were exciting but difficult years.
What is your idea of light?
Light is something I need to tell stories. And lamps are letters of an alphabet with which I have equipped myself to build anagrams, words, phrases… Starting with Euclid (point, line, surface) and the basic states of light: direct, indirect and diffuse. Mine is not an enlightened vision. I never approach a project solely from a quantitative point of view. Mine is a humanistic approach; it is like starting to read a novel.
What was your first real success?
The Nulla, in 2010, which partly coincides with the first use of LEDs. A small hole in the ceiling with a light source. It was an experience that changed me, because I didn’t think that such a simple gesture – Nulla has no form, it’s just the absence and essence of light-would be so decisive. It was the forerunner of a whole series of devices that came later. It reminds me of John Cage, the American artist who composed 4’33”, four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence. All my later production is an attempt not to interrupt that magic, that purity.
Puntina by Davide Groppi, progetto degli anni ’90Other important moments of your professional life?
Meeting Mrs. Maddalena De Padova, who allowed me to exhibit my things at her place – in that moment I felt I was at the center of music. Then there were some projects that came later: moments of transition that I always associate with lamps, which for me are my songs: Sampei, Infinito…
On Infinito, which was created by experimenting with an Led strip, how important is play in your practice as a designer?
So much. I don’t like to take my work too seriously; it’s through play that I can bring out the most instinctive part of the creative process. That’s why I don’t like the word “design” very much: it takes itself seriously, it intellectualizes everything. But it’s not an exact science. Some of the lamps I’ve made are things that tread the line between ready-made and joke.
You have called your showrooms “Spazi esperienza” (experience spaces). The one inside the company is even called “Teatro” (theater). Why is that?
It has to do with the idea of a place of representation, where light is the tool of representation: it is the theme of photography, cinema and theater; and I like to think of lamps as actors. I have a theatrical idea of living. The name “Experience Space” comes from the fact that I believe very much in touching with the hands, with the heart, with the brain, so that these spaces – now there are ten in the world – are places where it is possible to enter our world and interact with the lamps in an authentic way. I want to take the visitor, the customer, the designer, call them what you will, by the hand and bring them into my story.
Is there anything special about the showroom you are opening during Milan Design Week?
First of all, for me it is a reason for great excitement, I never thought – I say a trivial thing, I know – that I would open a space in via Manzoni, in such a magnificent location. It will be special because, for the first time, we will have a space that has been designed from the beginning to be able to see in a broader and more interactive way what it means to use our light.
Your products have been chosen by many famous chefs for their restaurants. Do you think there is a special relationship between light and food?
I think so, always in relation to the experience – because we are talking about a certain type of restaurant, which is really like an art gallery. I always try to propose to these chefs the idea that light can be considered as an ingredient of cuisine, to put light on the plate, to consider these situations – sometimes I succeed, sometimes not – as a bit Caravaggesque, with direct light on the table and the room immersed in a situation of semi-darkness, where each guest has the opportunity to feel like the only guest in the restaurant.
When you started, did you think you would get two Compasso d’Oro (for the Nulla and Sampei lamps, ed.)?
No, and I don’t think so now. I came to this market as an outsider, as someone who had been around a bit. I was surprised, impressed and grateful. That was also an important transition, especially being known among the insiders. But it didn’t change me. My sense of inquiry and curiosity remained unchanged. I like to stay in a state of hunger, thinking that there is still something to be discovered.
What are you most proud of?
Working with about 70 people who more or less consciously, some more than others (some have been working with me for 25 years), believed in this project. That makes me proud because there are often families, children, lives behind these people. It makes me responsible.
Your “dream in a drawer”, both as a designer and as an entrepreneur?
They coincide because I live my work in a totalizing way. I would say discovering something that does not exist, which is why I have been working for many years on the theme of magic, which for me means searching for a light without a source. With Nulla I came close, but I continue. I am working on some projects that come close to this utopia.
Do you feel more like a designer or an entrepreneur?
Neither. I feel that I am a person who works on the theme of creation, sometimes I am embarrassed when people call me an entrepreneur, because that side – which is part of my life – is almost a side effect, a consequence of what I am, what I have done. I like being a designer, but I prefer to use the term “inventor”.
