Interview - Alberto Alessi
by Federico Angi
by Federico Angi
[Federico Angi] When you are not Alberto Alessi, who are you?
[Alberto Alessi] I would like to be someone else, but I simply cannot. This is the fifty-sixth year I have sat at this desk. That really is a long time. Perhaps it would even be time for a change, but I just cannot manage it. I tried making wine: it is a fine thing, but it is not like being here. In the end my mind always goes back to the company. I still work in the same way. If a designer shows me a new object and I feel it has something special about it, I go ahead, even if everyone tells me to drop it. But I have to feel it! Perhaps that does not fall within sound management criteria, but that is how I have always worked. Of course the numbers matter and you have to look at them. But in our field they are not enough: the point is to find a balance. If we lose the ability to trust intuition, then creativity really does risk disappearing.
[FA] Is there a passion that has always been with you and that almost nobody knows about?
[AA] I do not know how unknown it really is, but I would say books. Along with the company, they are my greatest passion. Over the years I have built a collection I am very proud of: around 14,000 volumes, plus documents and a few objects, devoted to the history of Lake Orta, Lake Maggiore, and the Ossola valleys. It is a collection I am truly very happy with. It has kept me company for many years and, in some way, it helps me.
[FA] What is the first image that comes to mind when you think of “heat”?
[AA] Quite simply, it is the obsession I have, as a metal man, with all those metals that conduct heat. So the word heat immediately brings copper to mind. After silver, copper is an extraordinary conductor, but unlike silver it is toxic, so it has to be coated. Historically copper pans were tinned; now the process is industrialized and allows us to combine the almost perfect heat conductivity of copper with the hygiene of the steel that lines it inside.
[FA] Is there an object at Alessi that represents the idea of heat better than others?
[AA] I would say the La Cintura di Orione range of pots and pans by Richard Sapper, which has been in production since 1986. It was a project that at the time also involved great European chefs; their consultancy led to a product aimed at a “gourmet” public. Or rather, at all those cooking enthusiasts who often choose professional utensils.
[FA] What is the deepest lesson you received from your family, in the most human sense of the word, while working in the company?
[AA] More than a lesson, what comes to mind is an episode. I remember well that my grandfather, in the very first years I began working here, that is in 1970, said to me one day, purely by way of encouragement: “Ti at duvivi fé ’l notari,” that is, “You should have been a notary.” It was his rather singular way of encouraging me. At the time I was trying to do things that, in many people’s eyes, seemed a little strange, whereas he was an extremely practical man. That sentence stayed with me. The first years were not easy, but for that very reason they were profoundly formative.
[FA] If you had not joined Alessi, what path would you have wanted to follow?
[AA] Maybe I would have been a notary! After all, my grandfather perhaps did not know it, but in fact neither did I, that on my mother’s side we really did have a notary among our ancestors, at Casale Corte Cerro, a village just above here, at the end of this road. But joking aside, I would have liked to be an architect. That, yes! I was very interested, and I still am, in art and architecture. When the moment came to choose a university, I finally found the courage to tell my father, who was rather stern. I still remember the scene: he was in there, in his office; it was August by then and there was little time left to enroll. I went in and said: “Papa, I have decided, I think I will study architecture.” I thought he would be pleased. We were already working with a few architects at the company and it seemed a natural choice. Instead his answer was: “No, absolutely not.” So I enrolled in Economics. But it really was not my path: I never did understand double-entry bookkeeping. After a year I moved to Law, graduated, and in 1970 I officially joined the company. In the meantime I had already started working here; that was when I received my first real salary.
[FA] Did you spend a lot of time together with your father at the company?
[AA] My father did not talk much. He taught me a great many things, but he was not someone who left grand messages or made long speeches. So many of the first things I did, I did almost in secret. When I joined the company in 1970, Alessi was working at full capacity, but it was an entirely gray company. The showroom was made only of steel, polished or satin-finished. It struck me as rather sad. So I had an idea: instead of using the presses and the cold-stamping machines only to produce functional objects, why not employ them to make objects with no function? Those were the years when there was a great deal of talk about multiplied art. I was thinking of art multiples designed not by designers or architects but by artists and sculptors, intended for purely aesthetic enjoyment. The idea was almost utopian: to allow anyone to buy a work by artists such as Carmelo Cappello, Giò Pomodoro, or Andrea Cascella, sold as if it were an ordinary household object and at an affordable price. Ultimately it was a way of bringing art to everyone. All of this, though, I pursued without involving my father too much. Between 1970 and 1973 I even put the machine shop to work making the necessary molds. After the first presentation, however, it was immediately clear that it would be a flop: the public was not at all interested in my art multiples. After the fourth or fifth project my father finally noticed what I was doing and stopped me. There was also a multiple made with Salvador Dalí. I had gone to Spain two or three times to persuade him to collaborate and he agreed. But my father did not want to produce it. I only managed to realize that project many years later, on the occasion of the company’s centenary. That first adventure did not have the success I had hoped for, but it was one of the experiences that formed me most.
[FA] For Italians there is an almost emotional bond with your products. Can you tell me why, over the years, so many people have become so attached to your baskets, trays, or coffee makers? Have they become family objects?
[AA] I know there is an incredible stratification of Alessi trays in the sideboards and cupboards of Italian families. They may not carry the Alessi hallmark, but they carry the AlFra hallmark (Alessi FRAtelli), which was the company’s name in the 1950s, or, going further back still, FAO (Fratelli Alessi Omegna), which is the one from the 1920s and 1930s. But they are all there. Perhaps the emotional bond comes more from the fact—and in part I have to say this may also be a virtue—that we made, and still make today, objects that never die and that are handed down from generation to generation. Baskets and trays are among the most important product categories in the Alessi catalogue, but they are also the ones that keep up least well with the times. They are containers meant to hold other containers, and so they get used less. It is true, though, that objects in themselves tend to establish an affective relationship, or at any rate one of a more or less affective nature, with the public and with their owners. But where this comes from, I do not know. At this point one should perhaps cite Donald Winnicott, the English psychoanalyst, who developed the theory of transitional objects. Starting from the idea of play—Linus’s blanket, for example—the transitional object survives, expands, and persists in the life of an adult, as do art, religion, culture, and so on. Perhaps, in the same way, our Michael Graves kettle or our Aldo Rossi coffee maker have been able to establish a strange relationship of an affective nature with people.
[FA] When did the first designers arrive?
[AA] In parallel, from 1970 onward, I had begun collaborating with Ettore Sottsass, and a few years later, toward the mid-1970s, Richard Sapper arrived as well. This time, though, things really did work. Sottsass’s objects were a success; some of them are still in production. With Richard Sapper, on the other hand, came the 9090 coffee maker, which later became one of Alessi’s emblematic projects.
[FA] What is your happiest memory connected with the factory?
[AA] Perhaps it is bound up precisely with Richard Sapper’s 9090 coffee maker. Because when we presented it, it was immediately a great success. I felt relieved and said to myself: “So they are not sending me away after all? Hurrah, hurrah!” Truly a fine moment. I was really happy; it was an enormous satisfaction to see this coffee maker accepted so quickly by the general public as well. To think that in 1979 it was the first moka pot produced by Alessi and that, still today, it remains one of our bestsellers.
[FA] It was a project so complex that it required countless manufacturing operations. Today would it still be developed, or would that be considered a limitation?
[SS] It should not be done any more… and yet two years ago it happened again with the Menhir coffee maker by Michael Anastassiades. That one, I think, requires even more operations than Richard Sapper’s coffee maker. Madness. For the moment it is not yet achieving the same success as the 9090. But in spite of everything we still think it is worth it. Every now and then you also have to be willing to fall flat on your face.
[FA] In recent years kitchens have changed a great deal. Do you think the domestic ritual of the family has remained unchanged?
[AA] In my view yes, or at least for those who still cook at home. The biggest change we are living through is the rise of induction hobs. Italy has remained, together perhaps with Switzerland, one of the last countries where gas is still so widespread. Induction has completely changed the rules of the game: every pan has to have a magnetic steel base, so we are converting the entire production. And from the point of view of the relationship with heat, everything changes. There is heat, of course, but the flame disappears, and the flame had an almost poetic, visual component as well as a functional one. Induction is extremely efficient, but it is a different experience. The same goes for coffee makers. Induction hobs have put them in difficulty, especially the aluminum ones, which still make up most of our production. It is a technological change that is imposing a major transformation on the entire housewares industry.
[FA] If you had to leave a single object on the kitchen table, one capable of telling the story of your life and your path, which would it be?
[AA] On the kitchen table I would leave Richard Sapper’s 9090 coffee maker. It is a very important project, both in Alessi’s history and in my own. It was the first coffee maker produced by Alessi and, more generally, the first real object for the kitchen. From 1921, the year the company was founded, until 1979, we had dealt only with the table: the dining room, the bar, wines, hotel service, but never the kitchen. The 9090 marked the beginning of a new chapter. Today we are known above all for kitchen objects, but it all started there. And for me that project also has a personal meaning. It was a kind of homage to my maternal grandfather, Alfonso Bialetti, inventor, manufacturer, and in all likelihood also designer of the famous octagonal moka pot. I said to myself: “Let us try making a coffee maker too, but in steel instead of aluminum.” Out of that idea came a project I am still deeply attached to today.
[FA] Do cooking and designing have something in common?
[AA] I think so. I cannot say exactly what, but certainly yes. For instance, when I get into the kitchen I can never make the same recipe twice. Every time I do something different, I introduce some new variation. I do not quite know what kind of design that is—an unwitting one, perhaps.
[FA] Is warmth a quality that can be designed?
[AA] Well, yes, I would say so. If I look one way I see objects that give warmth; if I look the other I see others that, I would not say chill you, but certainly do not transmit warmth. The objects you designed for us in the Il Tornitore Matto collection, for example, certainly do give warmth. Not because of the temperature they give off, but because of the one they manage to arouse.
[FA] Are there objects that are formally perfect but emotionally cold? And, conversely, imperfect objects capable of creating immediate empathy?
[AA] I would say the “coldest” objects are the minimalist ones. It is a language I like very much, but it does tend to be, precisely, colder. If instead I take Bialetti’s Moka Express as an example, we are at the opposite end. That is a warm object: it immediately establishes a relationship of empathy with people. Even the simple fact of seeing it on the stove, with the coffee rising, evokes a domestic, familiar imagery. It is an object that goes beyond its function and becomes part of a ritual.
[FA] What is the dish you like to prepare when you have friends over for dinner?
[AA] The Poularde de Bresse is an extraordinary animal, raised exclusively in the Bresse region, on the borders of Burgundy. It is not actually a chicken; it is a young hen of the Gauloise Blanche breed. It is fattier and particularly flavorful. There is a very elaborate recipe that calls for as much as three days of preparation, but I no longer make it. I prefer a simpler version. You stuff the poularde with aromatic herbs and spices, then cover it completely with a lightly moistened paste of salt and flour, so as to create a compact crust. Before putting it in the oven I score the surface with a few designs, a small gesture that always amuses me. Then it cooks slowly for a good three hours. When the crust is broken open at the table it makes quite a scene… and it is truly delicious.
[FA] Was it important, in Alessi’s history, to allow yourselves the time and the freedom to experiment with new projects?
[AA] Yes, exactly. Experimentation has without doubt been a founding characteristic of the company. When I think that we have collaborated with more than three hundred authors and developed several thousand projects, I realize how much work there has been behind it. Every project means making molds, running trials, investing time and resources. Even when the molds are simple, nothing is improvised. But that is precisely why I wake up in the morning. It is what gets me out of bed: the idea of meeting a designer who will show me a new project. It is almost an illness… but all things considered, that is fine by me.
[FA] In your life, what has generated the most warmth? Objects, places, or people?
[AA] Places, perhaps. I am very attached to Lake Orta. And to the Isola di San Giulio in particular. According to tradition, it was there that Saint Julius, in the fourth century, built one of the first churches in this area. That church no longer exists today: an old seminary rose on its foundations, and over time it became a convent of nuns. That island exerts a fascination on me that is hard to explain. I live directly opposite and I look at it every day. It is a constant presence, and it never tires me. I remember that fifty years ago I even dreamed of persuading my father to buy that building and turn it into an Alessi study center. Naturally nothing came of it, but that idea says a great deal about how attached I felt to that place. Since then that island has remained a small mystery for me. And perhaps that is the place which, more than any other, still transmits warmth to me.