Dettaglio costruttivo di modello, Michele De Lucchi /
LUOGO: Il Chioso, atelier privato
Model construction detail, Michele De Lucchi /
PLACE: Il Chioso, private atelier
Medoc /
Filo di Lama, Erice 1312 /
DESIGN: Michele De Lucchi + Philippe Nigro
Medoc — Michele De Lucchi + Philippe Nigro
04
05
“Everything all right?“ he heard his voice asking, since he had not
answered yet. “Of course Ettore, everything all right”, he managed
to say smiling under his very long beard that he no longer even
knew if it had to hide something or simply helped him to meditate
well on propositions and answers.
“I know you are doing so much architecture... good.”
“Yes we are working a lot, even here in Milan, in the Porta Nuova
district. We made a pavilion for a bank, to do concerts, things like that”
“I remember Porta Nuova, construction sites were starting at
the time when I could not leave home. And are you satisfied,
did the construction go well?”
“Yes, you know I have been dealing with these buildings mostly
made of wood for a long time ...”
“I know it had become your passion. You did well, very well.
I couldn’t work well only with a material, I liked changing a lot,
experimenting with so many...”
Michele felt that he didn’t have to explain anything to him, but
he had a precise idea.
“It’s because you see, Ettore: in this way, it seems to me to be closer
to Earth, you know? Do you understand me, you who have always
written with so much respect about “the Planet”, as you called
the Earth.”
“Yes, love scratches on the skin of the planet...”
They smiled together, thinking back to the title of that ancient
Ettore’s text which was more or less dedicated to love and its forms
in the project, which had been published a long time ago.
Sottsass leaned forward a little, took his face in his hands, slowly
let them slide down, heaved a sigh, rubbed his eyes with his fingers
and raised his head towards Michele.
“I’m sorry, I’m a little tired. I’ve never recovered from that time
when I was sick. But you look great, you look happy.”
“I think so: even though I woke up this morning with this feeling...
like a memory. Perhaps you were the memory that was coming,”
Michele said, barely smiling at him.
Tell me more. What is it like to be so focused on this problem
of drawing with nature?”
“I couldn’t explain it so well. I started to work concretely in this
direction a long time ago, you know, when not many people were
talking about it.
Then I grew more and more passionate, I did my experiments with
furniture, vases, lamps, always using wood. I have also equipped
my house in Angera with a carpentry workshop, I recovered
a warehouse and I made a cabinet and a laboratory, it is called
Chioso.”
“You are good at putting your hands directly on things, on wood:
I imagine you will also choose the logs... To me, on the other hand,
nature is a world we must steal secrets from. When I made my
pottery I tried to throw twigs, herbs in the fire: to see if the colours
changed, if the coming out potteries showed some signs more
interesting than the life generating them, generating us...”
“To me, things started to work well together, when I thought that
buildings could also be built by re-using a kind of tree fastening.
In a sense I owe them a part of my life, of my work.”
“I understand. I too owed my life and my work, to things, to
the humble earths that no one looks at but which are useful to
make very beautiful pottery, to those plastic grains from which
incredible and very well-functioning inventions can be obtained,
to the laminates that seem nothing but with which you can build
very durable and beautiful furniture. The rest is thanks to some
customers, with some money, who let me do what I thought was
right to design and build: like houses, shops, objects, offices.
As well as those we did together for a long time.
But there must be something that fascinated you more and
dedicated yourself so much to the matter of which trees are made,
Natural Genius
A DESIGN STORY - Michele De Lucchi
