Being Unique: Gaetano Pesce at the Barbican
Gaetano Pesce is an Italian designer who has been blurring lines between beauty and utility for over 40 years. Whether working on furniture, jewellery, fashion, or Architecture, his designs aspire to become art with function. He is driven by the idea of uniqueness and that people be given the opportunity to actively explore this - whether through their own design, or through adapting one of his own creations. The Fontessa shoe, for example, is designed to be cut and re-formed by the user.
Gaetano Pesce is an Italian designer who has been blurring lines between beauty and utility for over 40 years. Whether working on furniture, jewellery, fashion, or Architecture, his designs aspire to become art with function. He is driven by the idea of uniqueness and that people be given the opportunity to actively explore this - whether through their own design, or through adapting one of his own creations. The Fontessa shoe, for example, is designed to be cut and re-formed by the user.
Speaking at the Barbican last night, he made a point that I found particularly interesting: visual design - whatever its form - is a method of communication. The message can be determined and anchored in the design itself - the manicled foot stool as a commentary on female emancipation for example - or it can be purely suggestive - as in the primitive shapes of his house in Bahia. Either way, to design in basic shapes, to build standardised high-rise block towers (yes, I'm looking at you Liverpool street), is to design mute.
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