Alessandro Mazzoni Delle Stelle Artwork valuations, appraisals and auction estimates

Born in Florence in 1941. He attended the Higher Industrial Design Course in Florence - ISIA.

In 1966, with some classmates - Duccio Trassinelli, Luciano Valboni and Carlo Fagnini united under the acronym "studio Penta" - he designed the bodywork of a racing car - the

Fra.Bat

–, co-designed and created, in the Florentine workshop of the same name, by Franco Battista, former collaborator of the master Pasquino Ermini from 1954 to 1958. Read the full biography

Alessandro Mazzoni Delle Stelle Biography

Born in Florence in 1941. He attended the Higher Industrial Design Course in Florence - ISIA.

In 1966, with some classmates - Duccio Trassinelli, Luciano Valboni and Carlo Fagnini united under the acronym "studio Penta" - he designed the bodywork of a racing car - the

Fra.Bat

–, co-designed and created, in the Florentine workshop of the same name, by Franco Battista, former collaborator of the master Pasquino Ermini from 1954 to 1958.

It is a racing car with "gull-wing" doors, a central rear Simca Abarth 1300 engine and a fiberglass body. Studio Penta establishes the "profile of the line", coordinating the "molding method" and obtaining an "elegant dress" for the chassis which "combines the graceful shapes" with "a good aerodynamic drag coefficient"

[01]

. The model is presented to

Turin Motor Show

of 1967 in the section

shows racing cars

. In September 1969 the prototype was exhibited in Monza at the sports car exhibition of

V Autodromo Festival

and later competes in Imola and on the Mugello circuit.

In 1969 he participated in the foundation of the ARDITI group (acronym for Reactionary Association of Totally Integrated Italian Designers) and developed, with the other members of the studio, research on objects with original formal characteristics derived from a new philosophy of use. The founding manifesto is the expression of the studio's intentions. In fact, it criticizes a certain mannerist design by proposing a critical investigation that "starts" from

function

of the object and of

mechanics

engage not so much and not only in the "design of the object" but rather in the emergence of a "matrix entity" understood as a "relationship" and not as an "outcome", that is, both "indefinite" and widely definable in its configuration by the user himself final according to your personal needs.

Formed with Duccio Trassinelli, after a few months the group also included Elisabetta Scheggi who remained there until 1974, while Gianni Gamberini, Mazzoni Delle Stelle's fellow student at ISIA, participated in the studio's activity from 1972 - collaborating on the lamp project

BT

And

Sad

– until mid-1973.

Prismar

(1969) is the luminous object with which the studio comes into contact with Sormani. A sort of "magic cube", the lamp is made with an unusual mirroring material - mirropan - which, preventing reading inside the object, conceals its function: when switched off it therefore looks like a mirror while when switched on it becomes transparent creating a play of reflections and lights on the crystal walls.

Therefore, ARDITI was among the first in Italy to experiment with low voltage lighting design

Bridge

(1971) – two or more methacrylate spheres containing the lamps that can be positioned at will at any point of an arc formed by two steel tubes – and

BT

(1972) where a steel panel serves as the base for magnetized cylinders, containing car lamps, connected to each other by a steel wire. In both projects the "theatrical" and interactive dynamic established between object and user is evident: in particular with

BT

(now included in the design collection of the MoMA in New York) where the positioning of the cylinders on the box containing the transformer - positive pole - and on the steel panel - negative pole - determines the switching on of the lamps.

In 1973 studio ARDITI also created with Sirrah,

Sad

lamp prototype also presented at

XV Milan Triennial

. The product, made up of three telescopic antennas equipped with friction joints and converging in a lamp holder cylinder, could be fixed but oriented using the range of action of the three antennas. Also with Sirrah, a "ground" version with a single antenna is also created -

Monostyle

– equipped with a specially modified clutch. Still in the lighting sector, the program is worth mentioning

ESA - Duct

, which proposed the introduction of an innovative product onto the market

standard

of electrified skirting.

In addition to experimental tests on technology based on low voltage, ARDITI studio was also among the first to develop objects related to electronics and digital, designing a series of watches in 1973 for Officine Bettarini, a high-tech company linked to Pignone.

Other projects, created with Sormani, in which the same philosophy of the group is found, aimed at creating a form that can be modified by the end user, are the series

Metamorphosis

(1974, with Duccio Trassinelli) – modular program of tables, beds and containers with highly customizable details (colours, finishes, handles) – and sofas

Cheerful

And

Allegretto

.

However, the most representative product of the group remains the armchair

Memory

(1972), through which the collaboration with the Cassina Center was developed - at the time the research center of both Cassina and C&B (which later became the current B&B). First soft shape (or "non-form") with adjustable alteration via a valve (patented by Duccio Trassinelli) that can be operated by hand, the product allows, upon sitting, the exit of the air from the polyurethane cells contained in an internal air chamber giving way for the user to adjust and fix, by closing the aforementioned valve, the shape of the armchair according to the weight or the need for rest. When not in use, the body impression remains "stored" in the chair, but by activating the valve again, it is possible to return to the original volume. A second "memory" evoked by the name of the product is represented by the covering: a single piece of fabric woven in jacquard according to the grid of the photographic image, life-size, of an armchair

vintage

. Presented at the fourth edition of

Eurodomus

this "shape-shifting" armchair also arouses attention for the aforementioned "theatrical" dynamics implicit in the proposal, but despite the interest aroused, the product struggles to establish itself on the market. No better luck will be had by the re-edition proposed, approximately 40 years later, by the newborn

brands

Tuscan Innocenti by Gemalinea.

During the collaboration with Cassina, ARDITI further develops different forms and technologies equally in line with its own design philosophy and with results considered perhaps too formally "undefined" by the company which quickly deems it appropriate to close this very experimental period of research

furniture

of the Tuscan group.

Once the ARDITI group was dissolved - in 1976 - Mazzoni Delle Stelle and Trassinelli continued to collaborate occasionally and intermittently until 1979. In the meantime, however, the Florentine designer established relationships with the Giovannetti company for which, together with Roberto Niccolai, designs the modular seating system

Minnie

(1978), made up of elements that can be assembled, while, together with Pierluigi Bacci, he created the marble table

Dome

(1983), the chair

My

(1983) and the sofa

Magic

(1981), equipped with a multifunctional armrest that can be moved with an ingenious rotation of the support surface which modifies the seating surface. The product is chosen to participate in the traveling exhibition

Italian Re-evolution

hosted by 7 modern art museums in the USA.

The collaboration with Gianfranco Gualtierotti dates back to the first half of the 1980s, a partnership which, although initially aimed at the Lombardy production sector, would also have repercussions in Tuscany in the following decade. After signing the transformable armchair

One Thousand and One Nights

(1984) for Giovannetti, the couple presented a "revolutionary" project to B&B that was perhaps too ahead of its time, but which, with some reason, can be considered the little-known precursor of the very fascinating "evolutionary" version - the sofa

Flaps

– developed by Francesco Binfaré for Edra in 2000.

Designed both in a square version and, more traditionally, with a rectangular base, the "relaxation island" called

Quasars

promises an enviable variability of use guaranteed by a simple mechanism

up&down

applied to backrests of various sizes and to round rotating support tables. The "table-environment" aroused great interest on the part of Ambrogio Busnelli, but was not even prototyped. The project has no better luck

moon

, selected by Cassina but abandoned after a first draft prototype.

For Gualtierotti and Mazzoni Delle Stelle, something concrete emerges after the meeting with Aurelio Zanotta who, faithful to a deep-rooted indifference towards "professional qualification", perhaps much better than other entrepreneurs - as the catalog that carries its name – focuses its interests on the «strength of ideas that will have legs to walk». The

concept

/elaborate model for a swinging chair with customizable positioning strikes him positively, leading him to request a study supplement for an armchair

Relax

able to assume different sitting inclinations. The result of various attempts to combine form and function is

Smyrna

(1987). Not a success, but a first step that gives rise to hope, inducing the two Tuscan designers to delve deeper into the theme of freedom of use and the autonomy of use of seating spaces. From this research a 1:5 scale model was born (a series of elements) which aroused great enthusiasm in the company and was promptly prototyped, engineered, put into production and covered by a global patent: the system

Europe

(1988).

The excellent success of the system

Europe

– still today a project «that has no similar in the history of design, a

record

remained undefeated, based precisely on elementary padded structures to which backrests and armrests are "hooked" through a simple, but ingenious, curved metal tubular support system"

[02]

–, puts the

team

project which, in the space of a few months, has several contacts both in Tuscany – for example the armchair

Relax

repositionable

Mantras

(1988) created with Phasem – both in northern Italy with Lema and its sister company Sorgente dei Mobili. However, the relationship is unable to evolve appropriately - very few, and for a short time, products actually placed on the market.

Gualtierotti and Mazzoni Delle Stelle tried to respond to this first major failure with a very particular proposal to Cassina: a soft, flexible and mouldable panel that the company covers with an industrial invention patent and a two-year contract (subsequently renewed ) which commits the contractors to the development of an article

furniture

that uses this "invention". After four years, faced with nothing, the designers recovered the patent for the flexible system and, now at the end of the first half of the 1990s, submitted the idea to Edra. Having obtained the approval and support of Valerio Mazzei and Massimo Morozzi, the armchair was finally created in 1995

Relax

flexible: the product – called, precisely,

Flexible

– met with good critical success but not so much on the market, temporarily closing the Milanese experience for the Florentine designer.

In fact, in the second part of the '90s, a very profitable collaboration began between Mazzoni Delle Stelle and Sergio Giobbi, a great expert in the sector and equally versed in "technological-kinetic" applications to the sector

furniture

(is

home

That

contract

) and in applied research on new materials.

In addition to the modular system for bedrooms

Clouds

(1999), created for the Modena-based Rasi Collezioni, the latest - and numerous - projects by the Florentine designer arise from the aforementioned partnership and are created by Busnelli:

Boboli

(1997) – seating system characterized by an exclusive automated movement for changing the position from sitting to

Relax

–;

Domino

(1997) – particular system of sofas with the possibility of joining to create a double bed –;

Monopolies

(1998) – seating system characterized by a base made of extruded aluminum designed to accommodate seats, backrests, armrests and various accessories in various positions –;

Biplane

(2000) – sofa with double backrest for transformation into a bed –;

Heron

(2002) – tub sofa with the possibility of aggregating headrests, trays and other accessories in the desired position; –

Leisure

(2002) – sofa with high backrest for a better seat

Relax

–;

Allegretto

(2004) – system of armchairs, sofas and accessories.