I frequented for a long time, in the eighties and nineties, in the environment of Mario Bellini, Italo Lupi, surrounded by a host of common friends, architects, designers, industrialists, politicians, bankers (in short, an elite) where everything was discussed; a light-hearted way of being a ruling class, in which some do not always speak with others and others with others, thus breaking a short circuit which is becoming increasingly stringent and suffocating in all spheres. I remember a great industrialist (whose name I omit, though it doesn't escape me at all), a manufacturer of televisions, of low technology and very poor design, which were good at the time and sold 10 million units a year (at least so he said), and I told him that his destiny was sealed and that he would fail, because a country like Italy cannot live on large volumes of low-end products, but only on very high-end, sophisticated and highly stylish products, of cutting-edge, in short, futuristic design, emblematic of Montenapoleone or Frattina, both inside and out. He derided me with a grand wave of his hand... as if to say: please. And I did it. Indeed, today his factories are empty, corroded by time and damp, and he offered them free of charge to a Korean multinational, just to bring work and life back to them. The multinational refused the offer.
As an art critic and scholar of the aesthetic and formal codes of modernity, I suggested he buy Brionvega, Geloso, and Allocchio Bacchino, and turn them into the Italian Bang & Olufsen; that, I said, would have had a great future. Italo Lupi was there and nodding. The two of us, him and I, we didn't talk much together, but when we did, we had a great elective affinity; we always agreed. In June ’23, he decided to leave us, quietly, without fanfare, just as he had lived his design and his editorship of Domus, to which he imparted a strong stylistic identity, based on his great and elegant inventive culture. This led him to be both poetic and practical in his own right, with his own special signature and an ability to converse with others, in the broadest sense of thoughts, words, and works; and in this, Domus was a great training ground for ideas, projects, and reflections, on design and architecture, of global renown. He is to be credited with the lustre of brands like Miu Miu, Fiorucci, and Cinelli, not to mention his flair for museum installations, veritable cathedrals of our time. His life was studded with successes, never shouted about, but always affirmed, as was his style as a man, an inventor, a visionary, capable of navigating difficult and complicated situations, where teamwork was required and where one often had to listen to truly unbearable remarks, demanding great patience. A great soloist and a great partner, especially with Mario Bellini, and together they created pages of Italian creative intelligence, capable of raising our style to high levels and keeping it there, as it was yesterday and as it is today, making it a universal language. In short, an architect and an exemplary master.
KLESSIDRA | EDITED BY FRANCESCO GALLO MAZZEO
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