8 July 2014
The teapot and the coffeepot: two articles for the table that played a leading role in the 20th-century debate over design, both when Alessandro Mendini launched his Tea & Coffee Piazza project for Alessi and when Donald Norman chose three teapots from his personal collection to exemplify the three aspects of contemporary design: the behavioral, the visceral and the reflective. With this project George Sowden, a historic protagonist of Sottsass’s Memphis in the eighties, has decided to have his say on the subject too. The teapots and coffeepots in the SoftBrew series have been created to restore to the consumer the pleasure of the ritual, as well as the quality of the result that goes with the preparation of the most popular beverages in the world. In opposition to the banalization of teabags and capsules, the designer has gone back to degree zero, to the archetype, made of superior ceramic material and fitted here with micropore metal filters, true works of advanced engineering set in the most ancient of raw materials to guarantee a perfect brew. Sottsass would probably have approved.