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Oceanic
Oceanic - 1981
designed by Michele De Lucchi
Exhibition Milan - Hong Kong design, new forms and functions in parallel with Italian iconic works
(Ferrara, Italy, 1951)
Michele De Lucchi is an Italian designer and architect. In 1975 he graduated in Architecture from the University of Florence, where from 1975 to 1977 he worked as an assistant to Adolfo Natalini, the founder of Superstudio. Between the late ’70s and ’80s he was a leading figure in Radical Architecture, and participated in the leading Italian design movements of the time; he was also one of the co-founders of the Memphis Group, with which he collaborated from 1981 to 1987. De Lucchi’s projects at the time were carried out in collaboration with numerous Italian and European furniture brands. In 1990 he founded the Produzione Privata experimental workshop with the aim of combining an experimental approach with traditional techniques and craftsmanship. He has curated numerous art and design exhibitions and designed museum buildings such as the Triennale di Milano, the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome and the Neues Museum in Berlin. He has carried out several projects for the city of Milan, including pavilions for Expo 2015, the UniCredit Pavilion in Piazza Gae Aulenti, and the setting up of the Pietà Rondanini at Castello Sforzesco. He teaches at the Faculty of Design of the Politecnico di Milano and is a member of the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca in Rome.
BIBLIOGRAPHY/SITOGRAPHY
Table lamp in metal. Bulb E27, 60 W.
W 90 x D 12 x H 75 cm
Barbara Radice, documenter of the Memphis Group, writes of Michele de Lucchi : ‘Michele has an almost bodily feeling for the world of inanimate objects. Thus, the most banal objects, in his hands become active, friendly partners amongst the everyday surroundings, instead of passive presences […] they proclaim the idea of a relaxed, friendly modernness, not of rhetoric or severity.’
Oceanic certainly is an ‘active, friendly partner’, resembling an oceanic snake or sea monster rising above the pink ‘ocean’ inquisitively, its head a yellow lamp, its body patterned in black and white stripes. The light switch is concealed in the middle section of Oceanic’s ‘body’, whilst the wire trails off from the end like a natural extension of its long ‘body’.
