The Fusion of Function and Play in Castiglioni

Museo Castiglioni, Milano – Tuesday, June 7^th

Glimpse inside of Museo Castiglioni
 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/11/arts/11iht-designside11.html

Achille Castiglioni is mostly known for his ‘form follows function’ design style – using everyday objects that are featured in his new products such as a bike seat or rolling kayak seat on a chair. Not only where these, so to say, ‘crude’ models but they were fairly humorous and playful as well – similar to his personality. 

Take these products as examples:

Bicycle seat used at phone booths
http://www.stylehive.com/tag/achille_castiglioni/recent/grid/15

This is a chair for telephone booths in the 1950s when telephones were expensive to use. The purpose of these seats was meant to be uncomfortable so the people using the phones would not take too long talking. This kind of thinking is intelligently functional yet playful in a way that sends the right message. In a way, not too many people would think about using an unattractive seat of an existing product into a new product with a different purpose/context.

Arc Lamp used in its context at B&B

The arc lamp might be one of the most famous of Castiglioni’s products because not only is it functional, but it is also quite playful and attractive. This lamp is made for the purpose of hanging over a dining table yet it looks like a normal lamp for a living room or something similar. The functional aspect is that it can hover over a table very well by using a flexible metal and a marble base with a heavy lamp shade so it would be able to droop downwards. This also looks quite beautiful and on top of that, it’s a lot of fun to play with – especially when the lamp shade can bob up and down so softly.

Sunflower light displayed in FLOS

Another product that I will mention is the sunflower lamp where there are many, many bulbs attached together to make a single light that references a sunflower. This is a playful metaphor not in the most obvious sense but it depicts something that is meant to be playful yet it is quite functional. Unfortunately, a large amount of energy must be used for it work and be used.

Shannon, Victoria, Calvin