Massimo Iosa Ghini was only 26 when he burst onto the Italian avant-garde design scene in 1985 with his small arm chair “Numero Uno”. Before that he had been part of group of graphic artists intent on revolutionising the world of comics. The epicentre of this revolution was Bologna which had become a pole of attraction thanks to Andrea Pazienza, Marcello Jori, the DAMS university department and Umberto Eco with his research into communication.
After graduating in architecture at the Milan Polytechnic, Iosa Ghini remained in the city, designing several television stage sets, and starting a long-standing love affair with the world of fashion and design.
After that came his period with Memphis and the assertion of what became known as “the Iosa Ghini mark”, a fluid, dynamic style, characterising the aesthetic of a cultural movement known as “bolidismo” after the sleek, streamline automobile hailed by Italian futurist Marinetti in his famous manifesto. Iosa Ghini’s designs and drawings exude physical and intellectual mobility. The endpoint is the “Fluid City”, an intangible, all-enveloping network that, like a nervous system, covers all points with its communication pathways and information clearance nodes. Movement, dynamism, lightness, multiplicity, action and a constant state of becoming are all contained in Ghini’s dynamic forms that seem “shaped by the wind”. By ’97, Iosa Ghini had presented his first collection, DINAMIC and in ’98, he mounted a personal show in Tokyo.
However, it is Iosa Ghini’s interior design work where theory and futuristic visions really come together. Companies like Ferrari, Superga, Omnitel, Renault and other international organisations were quick to understand the innovative philosophy underpinning his work. This led to other, more complex projects involving reappraisal of the client’s company image and with it all the phases of activity, from market research, project development, technology, engineering, prototype...
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