Achille Castiglioni
(1918-2002) architect and designer
Luca Perlini · · 2 min read
Achille Castiglioni was born in Milan in 1918 and from 1940 devoted himself to experimenting with industrial products together with his architect brothers Livio (1911-1979) and Pier Giacomo (1913-1968). With the latter, after graduating in architecture in 1944, he began a design practice wholly devoted to research into new forms, techniques and materials, towards an "integral" design process.
One of the founders of ADI, the Italian Industrial Design Association, he played a leading role in many editions of the Milan Triennale, up to the "Nuova Triennale" of 1979, where he was one of the twelve Italian designers in the "Raccolta del Design".
Mezzadro (1957) - stool - Zanotta
Castiglioni created some of the most ingenious objects of modern design, in the most varied types and with international success, as well as countless installations, from those for the Milan Triennale to the exhibition of the Zanotta collection at the Forum Design in Linz in 1980. His work is documented in essays on Italian design, in the annals of the Compasso d'Oro, which he won several times, and in the collections of the most important design museums.
Arco (1962) - floor lamp - Flos
In 1980 the archive of the studio he shared with his brother Pier Giacomo was acquired by the Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione (CSAC) of the University of Parma.
Parentesi (1971, with Pio Manzù) - pendant lamp - Flos
In 1984 the Museum für angewandte Kunst in Vienna opened a travelling solo exhibition of his work, later shown at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin, the Milan Triennale, the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Zurich, the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In 1986 the Röhsska museet in Gothenburg devoted an exhibition to the pieces he designed for Zanotta and Flos.
Alongside his design and critical work, carried out in the 1950s also through the magazine "Stile Industria", he taught: a lecturer from 1969, from 1981 he held the chair of Interior and Industrial Design at the Faculty of Architecture of the Politecnico di Milano. He died in Milan in 2002.
