Gaetano Pesce is a master architect and industrial designer by trade. He’s also a maverick intellectual, a prankster, and an avant-garde innovator by nature. Since the 1960s, Pesce – born in La Spezia, northern Italy, in 1939, and based in New York for years – has stubbornly pursued every oddball idea that has crossed his path, turning seemingly impossible dreams into reality. He treats each new creation, be it a towering building or a twisting vase as if it’s his first love – with boundless passion and endless curiosity.
His oeuvre is nothing short of iconic; a breathtaking showcase of daring creativity that is unmistakably his, and that inspires anyone who comes across it. Pesce has an entire world of wonder to offer and there have been many successes all over the globe. For example, back in 1972, for the notorious MoMA exhibition ‘Italy: The New Domestic Landscape’ curated by Emilio Ambasz, the designer conceived an installation, The Period of Great Contaminations: Housing Unit for Two People, that played with the notion of temporality, as it was presented as a third-millennium archeologist’s discovery of an underground city from a hundred years earlier. Visitors entered his claustrophobic square bunker to discover an empty space, with only two screens showing two naked people walking around. It was a poignant exploration of human vulnerability and our quest for meaning in the face of the unknown.
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Denne historien er fra May 2023-utgaven av Wallpaper.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Guiding Light - Designer Joe Armitage follows his grandfather's footsteps in India, reissuing his elegant midcentury lamp and creating a new chandelier for Nilufar Gallery
For some of us, family inheritances I tend to be burdensome, taking up space, emotionally and physically, in both our minds and attics. For the London-based designer and architect Joe Armitage, however, a family heirloom has taken him somewhere lighter and brighter, across generations and continents, and into the path of Le Corbusier. This is the story of a lamp designed by Edward Armitage in India 72 years ago, which has today been expanded into a collection of lights by his grandson Joe.
POLE POSITION
A compact Melbourne house with a small footprint is big on efficiency and experimentation
URBAN OASIS
At an art-filled Mexico City residence, New York designer Giancarlo Valle has put his own spin on the country's traditional craft heritage
WARM FRONT
Designer Clive Lonstein elevates his carefully curated Manhattan home with rich textures and fabrics
BALCONY SCENE
A Brazilian island hotel offers a unique approach to the alfresco experience
ENSEMBLE CAST
How architect Anne Holtrop is leaving his mark on the Middle East
Survival mode
A new show looks at preparing for a post-apocalyptic landscape (and other catastrophes)
FLASK FORCE
A limited-edition perfume collaboration between two Spanish craft masters says it with flowers
BLOOM SERVICE
A flower-shaped brutalist beauty in Geneva gets a refresh
SECOND NATURE
A remodelled museum in Lisbon, by Kengo Kuma & Associates, meshes Japanese and Portuguese influences to create a space that sits in harmony with its surroundings
