Alessi - Frozen Products

Alessi Museum, Milan - Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

Alessi Museum - Archive of Products

On June 8th, we visited the head office of Alessi about an hour outside of Milan. They house a museum (designed by Mendini) and a large store selling only their products. The Alessi Museum is not a traditional museum with graphics and text depicting their history; it is more of a category-based archive of their past products and prototypes.


As our guide showed us through the numerous glass shelves, we learned about the collaborations of Alberto Alessi with over 500 internationally famous designers such as Sottsass, Castiglioni, Mendini and Giovannoni. Since the 50's, Alessi does not employ in-house designers, and prefers to work with independent and external talents who remain free from the corporate influence. They do have “internal technicians” who figure out the scope of what projects the company is interested in and who would be the right fit to design the new product.

The most interesting part for me were some of the products that were designed in the 70s or earlier decades, but looked as if they were modern enough to be sold today. Designs that are not ready for the mass-production techniques of the day or are not the right style for current market trends, but are profound enough to be kept for a later date are called “frozen products”. Alessi keeps old prototypes around because current trends and technology are always changing. Who knows, maybe a product from an earlier decade that was extremely expensive to produce, is able to be manufactured at half the cost in the next decades. Or, if the current market trends in 5 years perfectly match the aesthetics of a product already designed 20 years ago, the design can found in the archives and produced.

Alessi Products

Alessi’s design philosophy is established as making products that evoke emotion. The emotional and artistic meanings behind each product creates a link between people. Alessi is also known as being a true “Italian Design factory”. Their products are still considered as being handicraft items made with the aid of machines, not just an industrial plant.

Alessi says that the company's role is to "mediate continually between the most advanced and stimulating expressions of international creative culture on the one hand, and the public's requirements and dreams on the other. [It is] a [company] that should be as open and dedicated to the world of creation as possible".

An entire summary of Alessi's history written by Alberto Alessi himself can be found here.

Alessi Store and Alessi Museum

By Laura Van Staveren, Anne Charbonneau and Amanda Cox

Keywords: Design History, Business Strategy, Style