Girotondo, Alessi
King-Kong

18 September 2014

Affection, communication, relationship. This was the recipe Stefano Giovannoni came up with in the early nineties as a way of imagining a new kind of design, one capable not only of responding to a need, as had been the case after the war, but also of speaking, of making people think, bringing a smile to their faces or sowing the seeds of doubt. In 1989, before convincing Alberto Alessi that the world needed colored plastic to shake up the domestic scene, the designer from La Spezia and Guido Venturini, working together under the name King-Kong, created a steel tray with a motif of little men forming a ring-around-the-rosy (Girotondo in Italian), like the ones cut out of paper by children. The reference is precise and hits the mark: the world of childhood is memory and emotion, but fun too. Our basic needs have now been met, but the fantasy that generates desire is still there to be stimulated. The little men invented by King-Kong proved such a success that over the years they became a recurrent motif on many objects produced by the famous Omegna-based company: baskets, letter-holders, caddies, clips, bookmarks, picture frames and others.

Girotondo, design di Stefano Giovannoni per Alessi

Photo: Emanuela Carelli.

Girotondo, design di Stefano Giovannoni per Alessi

Photo: Emanuela Carelli.

Girotondo, design di Stefano Giovannoni per Alessi

Photo: Emanuela Carelli.

Girotondo, design di Stefano Giovannoni per Alessi

Photo: Emanuela Carelli.

Girotondo, design di Stefano Giovannoni per Alessi

Photo: Emanuela Carelli.

Girotondo, design di Stefano Giovannoni per Alessi

Photo: Emanuela Carelli.

Girotondo, design di Stefano Giovannoni per Alessi

Photo: Emanuela Carelli.

Girotondo, design di Stefano Giovannoni per Alessi

Photo: Giacomo Giannini.

Girotondo, design di Stefano Giovannoni per Alessi

Photo: Giacomo Giannini.


Domitilla Dardi

Torn between the history of art and the history of architecture, she came across design at the end of the last century and has not let go of it since. She loves to deal with everything that entails the use of ingredients, their choice, mixing and transformation: from writing to cooking, from knitting to design, from perfumes to colors. She is curator for design at the MAXXI and professor of the History of Design at the IED.


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