Michele De Lucchi and Alberto Nason

Michele De Lucchi was born in Ferrara in 1951. After graduating from the Faculty of Architecture in Florence, he began working as an assistant to Adolfo Natalini in the Design course. During this period, he became involved with the radical design movement, which led him to co-found the Cavart group, and proved to be a fundamental push for his future career. Later, he moved to Milan where he became friends with Ettore Sottsass and worked with him in one of the most representative groups of postmodernism in the 1980s, the Memphis group, a collective committed to creating a new language that played with the recovery of kitsch elements from the 1970s and preferred plastic and laminated materials, with a clear vocation for the rationalism of industrial production. During this period, De Lucchi also participated in other important collective experiences of the time, such as Centrokappa and Alchimia.Thanks to Ettore Sottsass, starting in 1979, De Lucchi began his collaborations with Olivetti, as a consultant for the design of the Syntesis in Massa, and then, in 1984, with Olivetti in Ivrea, until becoming the head of the design office from 1988 to 2002. In parallel with his commitment to Olivetti, the architect continued to work independently, winning prestigious projects such as the interior design of Deutsche Bank's offices, Poste Italiane, and Intesa San Paolo, for which he was involved in designing credit cards as well as the interior design of the Piazza della Scala headquarters in Milan. He also completed projects for Enel, Telecom Italia, and Piaggio.In 1989, he received the prestigious Compasso d'Oro award for the "Tolomeo" lamp, created for Artemide. "Tolomeo" was the result of an intuition: to innovate the classic desk lamp with a pantograph, an object that was born with a declared technical and functional purpose and that recalls the imagery of the office and design, making it an elegant and modern furnishing accessory. "Tolomeo," which also compares with some icons of past design such as FontanArte's "Naska Loris" from 1933 and Jac Jacobsen's "Luxo" from 1937, later made famous by the Pixar logo, was an object destined to become a best-seller from the start. His collaboration with Artemide has led to the creation of many other lamps, in addition to the rich collection of Tolomeo lamps: Castore, Dioscuri, Ipno, Logico. Among the other companies he has collaborated with are Alias, De Padova, Poltrona Frau, Caimi, Glas Italia, iGuzzini, Danese, and De Castelli.In 1990, he decided to found his own brand, Produzione Privata, with which he creates furnishings, without abandoning his work as a designer, which sees him involved in exhibitions and museum installations, such as the Neues Museum in Berlin, or in restorations, such as the Design Museum at the Triennale di Milano or the former Agip gas station in Piazzale Accursio, Milan. Since 2017, Michele De Lucchi has been the director of the Domus magazine. His editorial line is characterized by the mixing of disciplines and content, ranging from Design to Philosophy, with a constant research aimed at investigating space and objects in relation to humans.

Alberto Nason is an Industrial and Lighting designer born in Venice, who spent his youth in Murano, an island to which he is strongly tied due to its glass-making tradition. He studied in Milan and obtained a diploma in Industrial Design from the IED.He works as a freelance designer and has been collaborating with Michele De Lucchi and his studio AMDL Circle since 1998. He has developed projects and produced installations for companies such as Artemide, Alessi, Vistosi, Produzione Privata, Axis71, AVMazzega, and De Castelli. In the field of Lighting design, he has worked on projects with La Biennale di Venezia and in 2019, he worked with AMDL Circle on the lighting project for the Voce restaurant in Milan. He is responsible for the development of the design concept for companies, following the process from the initial stages to production. His interest in craftsmanship and materials leads him to discover new workshops, artisans, and professionals with whom he engages in a dialogue to develop experimental projects together.