Michele de Lucchi has worked as an architect and designer since the 1970s. As a co-founder of the Memphis Group and advocate of "radical design", he has exerted a huge influence on the history of Italian and international design. Since the eighties, de Lucchi has worked as a product designer for companies producing designer lights and furniture, such as Artemide, FontanaArte and Kartell. One of his most successful creations is the Tolomeo table lamp, he designed with Giancarlo Fassina for Artemide.
De Lucchi was born in Ferrara in 1951 and studied architecture in Florence. Already while studying, he turned to "radical design" and founded the group Cavart with like-minded people. In the late 1970s he worked for the Studio Alchimia, a group opposing mass production and purely functional objects. Together with Ettore Sottsass, who was also active at the Studio Alchimia, de Lucchi created the Memphis Group in 1981. It followed similar principles, and some of its coloured, unconventionally shaped objects are now iconic.
As a product designer, Michele de Lucchi has worked for Olivetti, Bodum, FontanaArte, Artemide and others. He has been awarded numerous significant design prizes like the IF Design Award, the Design Plus and the Compasso d'Oro, for his work. His works are exhibited in major international museum like the Centre Pompidou in Paris and in the Neues Museum in Berlin.
De Lucchi's wide-ranging work includes buildings, pieces of furniture and household utensils of every kind. Michele de Lucchi has designed remarkable lights for Artemide and FontanaArte, especially the Artemide Tolomeo desk-light he developed with Giancarlo Fassina in 1987. Today it is one of the most popular desk-lights ever and one of the designer's favourites.
Michele de Lucchi's lights and pieces of furniture are functional and feature aesthetical shapes. High-quality materials and a well-thought-through shaps turn his creations into timeless designer classics.
Picture: © Ph.GiovanniGastel