The Naviglio on the right, a warm sun just in front of us, some chatting guys, a couple in love. A little further, noisy sounds, people stuck in a traffic jam and the frantic life of Milan. A warm sunny day of Spring (finally arrived!), in an outlying part of the city.
That’s where I was last week with my special class of design, in order to discover an hidden, small, still full of interesting aspects and surprising world of De Vecchi Silverware. The owner who welcomed us, Giacomo, so proud and satisfied by his job, has a lot of things to say, too. You could see, through his eyes, how much passion he has for what he does, day by day.
But, maybe, it is a “matter of family”: he represents the third generation of a family company, founded in 1935 by his grandfather Piero, who made pieces for the Futuristic Movement. Hence, a traditional craftsman or an avant-garde artist? Both. For sure, he did something completely new, never done before. In a first moment, he was particularly allured by the interactivity of objects, how they could appear always changing still remaining the same, thanks to the kinetic energy. Through Mr. Giacomo’s father, Gabriele, this fascinating idea developed, considering the mirror effect as well, which reflects shapes and colors, and then applying this to silver, seeing how forms do react through it. Silver has no color, but you can easily play using it as a changeable surface, and creating a relationship between the real and the fake, the material and the immaterial elements.
Among the hundreds of objects they have done, from Mr. Piero untill now, something caught my attention that day: some really beautiful vases.
Mr. Giacomo explained that what was interesting was seeing how different lines can create different lights, in different points of the surface. In these vases, “Phoemina” and “Diana”, for instance, they worked on two profiles:
For this one, called “Invaso”, a virtual vase is inscribed in the factual one, and it is created by inverting background and shapes.
This limited edition vase (only 70 copies), “Crac”, is broken as it would be “two in one”: various and multiplied forms reflect images and lights.
But it is not finished yet: hundreds of shapes, curves, squares, triangles… in order to design thousands of bright and sparkling games!
Shall we bloom? 