MICHELE DE LUCCHI
“Michele De Lucchi was born in 1951 in Ferrara and graduated in architecture in Florence. During the period of radical and experimental architecture he was a prominent figure in movements like Cavart, Alchymia and Memphis. De Lucchi has designed lamps and furniture for the most known Italian and European companies. For Olivetti he has been Director of Design from 1992 to 2002 and he developed experimental projects for Compaq Computers, Philips, Siemens and Vitra and he elaborated various personal theories on the evolution of the workplace.
He designed and restored buildings in Japan for NTT, in Germany for Deutsche Bank, in Switzerland for Novartis, and in Italy for Enel, Olivetti, Piaggio, Poste Italiane, Telecom Italia. In 1999 he has been appointed to renovate some of ENEL’s (the Italian Electricity Company) power plants.
For Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Bundesbahn, Enel, Poste Italine, Telecom Italia, Hera, Intesa Sanpaolo and at other Italian and foreign banks he has collaborated to the evolution of the corporate image, introducing technical and aesthetic innovation into the working environments. He has taken care of numerous art and design exhibitions and has planned buildings for museums as Triennale di Milano, Palazzo delle Esposizioni di Roma and Neues Museum Berlin. In the last years he developed many architectural projects for private and public client in Georgia, as Ministry of Internal Affairs and the bridge of Peace in Tbilisi, recently unveiled.
His professional work has always gone side-by-side with a personal exploration of architecture, design, technology and crafts. In 1990 he founded Produzione Privata, a small-scale company concern through which Michele De Lucchi designs products that are made using artisan techniques and crafts. Since 2004 he has sculpturing little wooden houses with the chain saw to create the essentiality of the architectural style.
His Studio, aMDL S.r.l., has its offices in Milan and Rome. In 2003 the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris has acquired a considerable number of his works. Selections of his products are exhibited in the most important design Museums in Europe, United States and Japan.
In 2000 he was appointed Officer of Italian Republic by President Ciampi, for services to design and architecture. In 2001 he has been nominated Professor at the Design and Art Faculty at the University in Venice.In 2006 he received the Honorary Doctorate from Kingston University, for his contribution to “living quality”.
In 2008 he has been nominated Professor at the Design Faculty of the Politecnico of Milan and Member of the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca in Rome.
In 2009 he received the Golden Fleece Order and in 2010 the Presidential Order of Excellency by President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili.
“I know Maurizio and Davide Riva since some years and since the first meeting we established an understanding which is more than a simple professional relation: I believe that there is a condition when people understand each other with the “nose”, because also the smell is a sense which associates and unites, by solidifying a friendship””