design Wiel Arets, Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas, Il caffè Alessi

June 28, 2008 1:13 pm admin Home

The "Tea & Coffee Towers" operation – 22 international architects invited by Alessi to design a tea and coffee set – was declared from the start to be a medium-long term project. It was clear immediately that the first part of this adventure would require intense commitment on the part of the company and its contributors, but that this enormous, and generous, effort would bear no immediate results in terms of products released onto the market.

As a result, "Tea & Coffee Towers" was, for Alessi, a "dangerous" period of design gestation, even though the company was fully aware of, and did not underestimate, the risks inherent to the nature of the operation. Hiring 22 of the biggest stars of contemporary architecture to design a tea and coffee set is an investment of such financial, intellectual and corporate energy that a short-term amortization would be impossible. In addition to the personality and volume of international commitment of each designer, none of the participants in the "Tea & Coffee Towers" project had been involved with industrial design until that moment. Moreover, Alberto Alessi and Alessandro Mendini - artistic director of the project - had agreed not to place restrictions on the stylistic profile nor on the choice of materials.