Alessi has won several Good Design Awards 2022 for Twergi by Ettore Sottsass, 100% make-up Proust by Alessandro Mendini, Plissé by Michele De Lucchi, and Sweetheart by Jim Hannon-Tan
The Good Design Awards are among the most prestigious and renowned design awards in the world. Now in the 71st edition, they are organized annually by the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design in collaboration with the European Center for Architecture, Art, Design and Urban Studies, and Metropolitan Arts Press, Ltd. Founded in Chicago in 1950 by architects Eero Saarinen, Charles and Ray Eames, and Edgar Kaufmann Jr, the Good Design Awards reward over 900 design, graphic and packaging projects from more than 48 countries every year. The criteria include innovation, sustainability, creativity, branding, form, function, materials, utility and aesthetics.
Good Design Awards to the Alessi 100 Values Collection
Alessi Values Collection is the special initiative carried out by Alessi to celebrate the company’s centenary. The collection includes different objects, original versions, studio tests and new versions of highly successful classics. Twelve projects, one for each month of 2021, celebrate one hundred years of research in the field of applied arts.
The Twergi collection, by Ettore Sottsass, is the first in the series. Originating in 1989, the new version of the collection has been enhanced with a new color palette. The series includes jars, a corkscrew, a centerpiece, and salt, pepper and spice grinders. All items are made in Italy using a semi-artisanal turning process, respecting strict environmental, social and economic standards.
Discover Casa Lana, Sala Ettore Sottsass, at Triennale Milano
The 100% make-up Proust vase by Alessandro Mendini also belongs to the Alessi 100 values collection. It is an extraordinary object originally crafted for an exhibition in Bonn. Initially exhibited in two pieces in 2000 at the exhibition Italy-Germany 4-3. Fifty years of Italian and German design, today the vase is back in a numbered edition of 999 pieces. This vase ideally joins the collection coordinated by Mendini in 1992 and entitled 100% Make Up; on that occasion, 100 authors decorated the same vase, designed by Mendini himself.
Discover the Mondo Mendini exhibition at the Groninger Museum
Plissé collection by Michele De Lucchi
Also awarded with the Good Design Award 2022, the Plissé collection, designed by Michele De Lucchi, includes an electric kettle, a blender, a hand blender, a toaster and an orange squeezer. The design of these small appliances embodies the essence of Alessi, which has always offered purposeful objects characterize by an extremely sophisticated look that elevates them to real domestic sculptures. Inspired by the ’50s and ’60s, the Plissé collection gives folds and pleats to everyday tools transforming them into elegant objects to exhibit in the kitchen.
The Sweetheart nutcracker
Sweetheart, by Jim Hannon-Tan, is a nutcracker inspired by the story of the Australian crocodile of the same name. Nearly 6 meters long, he had a curious penchant for attacking outboard motor propellers. In 1979, he accidentally drowned by getting tangled in a net. His stuffed remains are preserved in a museum. This nutcracker is inspired by a late-Victorian model and is a tribute to Australian wildlife. It is a sturdy and practical object made of cast aluminum, able to crack every kind of nuts.
