10-On-10 With Massimo Iosa Ghini Founder, Iosa Ghini Associati, Italy

Massimo Iosa Ghini is an Italian architect, designer and professor known for pioneering the Bolidist Movement in the 1980s, a style which he sums up as “a way of narrating the transition from materialety to drawing things in which the visual and media aspect prevails with respect to the object’s functional purpose”. In the year 1990, Massimo founded Iosa Ghini Associati with his Wife, Milena Mussi. He is known for his streamlined and organic designs, and is praised for his “visionary ability to blend disciplines, forms and dimensions crossing boundaries in art, design, and architecture. His work spans across product design, architectural and museum planning, public transport, as well as in the design of retail chains all over the world, developing projects for major international groups such as Ferrari, Capital Group, IBM Italia, CMC Group Miami, Seat Yellow Pages, Alitalia among many others. One of his notable projects is the Ferrari Factory Store in which his dynamic, Futurist and strikingly Italian style is transparent. He has been involved with the Memphis Group since the 1980s with some of his iconic creations. His design and architectural works have received important honorable mention including that of the Compasso D’Oro Award ADI, and various awards including the Good Design Award by the Chicago Athenaeum, the Red Dot Award and the iF Product Design Award, Germany, the Roscoe Award, USA, the IAI AWARD Green Design Global Award and the IAI Awards, Shanghai, China and many more. SURFACES REPORTER is delighted to share an interaction with the design maestro where he discusses about his dynamic style, his journey as a designer and much more.

1 You are known as the father of the Bolidist movement. tell us more about this.

The main idea behind Bolidism was around ‘speed’ because at that time, 30 years ago, we considered that the world would have an evolution based on the idea of speed, like today everyone has WiFi, technology that pushes the people to go faster. We started to design the idea of speed as simultaneity, as a sharing of things, as intelligence within things and as a paradox. The dematerialization of the object that becomes an icon rather than a material element and prepares itself to enter into the new WEB. We didn’t design pieces which are just functional but had a message inside. In every design, there is a sort of a collateral message. It’s not only an armchair or a sofa but it’s also a communication of philosophical idea or something. In every piece of Italian design in my opinion is in idea to put a message inside, in particular in Bolidist, we put the message of quality of speed, sometimes with the shape because this is part of everyday that we live.

2 About your famous Ferrari project, how did you come up with such an important project and how was your experience in designing that project.