Industrial Modernist designer Achille Castiglioni was born in Milan, Italy in 1918. After completing his training as an architect, the 26 year old Castiglioni founded a design office with brothers Pier Giacomo Castiglioni and Livio Castiglioni. Although Livio stopped working with Achille and Pier in 1952, over the next 40 years the Castiglioni brothers would create over 150 pieces of interior design that influential critics regard as design classics.
Achille Castiglioni's architectural background inspired much of his design work, taking simple everyday objects and ideas and combining them in innovative ways. Early examples of this process can be seen in the "Sella" and "Mezzadro" stools that take a bicycle seat and a tractor seat respectively and repurpose them as household furniture with elegant simplicity.
However, it was for his iconic lighting designs for Italian firm Flos that Achille Castiglioni is perhaps best known. Stark minimalist designs such as the exposed bulbs of "Tubino" (1951), "Luminator" (1955) and "Bulbo" (1957) paved the way for more shapely pieces such as the "Splugen Brau" (1961) spun aluminium ceiling pendant and the "Arco" floor lamp.
Created in 1962, the "Arco" took inspiration from streetlights to solve the problem of how to provide overhead lighting for a table without the need for a ceiling fitting. A heavy marble base counterbalances a stainless steel arc that can extend as far as 2.5 metres. 1962 proved to be a big year for Achille and Pier Giacomo as they also introduced the "Toio" light and provided lighting for the Milan Fair Montecatini pavilion.
Taking inspiration from American culture, possibly the most playful item from this decade is the "Snoopy" table light (1967), styled after the cartoon character's bulbous nose.
The Castiglionis were not simply restricted to lighting. In 1965 they produced the "RR126" stereo system for Brionvega, which rethought the boxy stereo systems of the time. The dials and controls were reminiscent a face, giving it a playfulness rarely seen in such devices.
Throughout the 70s Achille Castiglioni continued to produce groundbreaking lighting design. The taut wire of the floor to ceiling 1971 "Parentesi" suspended pole light can also be seen in the "Frisbi" pendant light (1978). During the 80s Castiglioni worked for Alessi and generally developing smaller, tabletop items such as the "AC04" fruit bowl and colander (1995).
Castiglioni died in 2002, typical of his interest in the functional, when asked which of his designs he was most proud, Achille Castiglioni declared it was his 1968 inline power chord light switch. He said of the switch:
The object I'm proudest of? A switch for an electric lead I designed thirty years ago with my brother Pier Giacomo. It was produced in large numbers and bought for its formal qualities, but no one in the shops selling electrical materials knows who did the design... Often when I enter a room someplace in the world and reach out for the lamp switch, I find I'm holding our design.
