Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni
An ingenious small solid that plays on the onlooker’s visual perceptions, acquiring a different presence at every glance.
In 1968, CEDIT commissioned Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni to design “ceramic objects for small-scale production”, with the further specification that “the maximum size of each piece should be at the most of the order of 25-30 cm, in both height and width”. With the meticulous attention to detail characteristic of their iconic creations, the two designers worked on a family of three vases, identical but in different sizes, with a strikingly original form: the perfectly circular mouth of each vertically extruded piece gradually flattens to a straight line, rather like a tiny jug with a tapered base.
The original colours of the 1968 edition – grey, brown and red, all tending to be dark – were called “Fumo”, “Castoro” and “Ciliegia”; today’s colours – grey, dark blue and red – have been given the names “Fumo”, “Notte” and “Ciliegia” respectively.