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India is famous for its service-oriented culture. From the past to the contemporary dynamism, there are plenty of well-know services in every field of human activity. From the call-centers to some of the finest educational institutions of the whole Asian continent (the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad for all), Bollywood and the high-tech sector with its impressive software and hardware research centers.

The Indian subcontinent is now rivaling China and it starts to get a lot of attention from abroad. Attention to its products, but also to its services. In the same way we can have top-class or “anonymous” design, a lot of interesting things can be found in terms of services. In this article we will talk about one of the most impressive services you can find around (although not really know to the foreigners): the Mumbai “DabbaWalla”.

We can start from the name. In hindi language, “Dabba” means box, and in this case it is referred to the lunchbox. While “Walla” is a suffix: the person. “DabbaWalla” altogether then means: the person who carries the lunch-boxes.

As the name says, it is a service. The lunch-boxes are carried from the home in the suburbs (where the food is cooked) to the people working downtown, in the big city. Let’s say that it is about people carrying lunch-boxes. In order to understand what make it so special, we have to talk a little about the cultural background.

The typical Indian cooking style is based on a number of time consuming activities at time rather tedious. If we talk about the middle class, we have a system where the husband goes out for work early in the morning, while his wife is home taking care of all the household activities. The problem is that the wife can’t finish the daily cooking before her husband leave. Given the length of the cooking process, she generally finishes by late-morning, let’s say around 11.

Of course, there are many options to get lunch at your workplace. It can range from the street-vendors to all kind of restaurants. Still, most people prefer to eat food from home. Culturally the food must be from home because of quality, taste and nutritional factors. There is idea that the food bought on the street cannot be eaten on regular basis. If the food comes from home, the quality is of course higher and the taste is perfectly fitting the personal preferences. No one knows your taste better than your wife.

All of these cultural elements generate this quite impressive phenomenon called “DabbaWalla”. Having to give a definition, we could go for something like: “an highly efficient human based logistical system for food supply”. Bluntly, hundred thousand lunch boxes are delivered on a daily base from the house-holds to the different work-places. And, of course, back. Every day, hundred thousand women cook food, and their food is delivered to their men working somewhere else in the city.

Once arrived here, the reader could ask a very simple question. If you must eat home cooked food, and the cooking is lengthy and tedious, why don’t they cook the food the night before? The European blue-collars used this system for more than a century. To answer this, another element has to be taken into account. Mumbay is a city where to commute is hectic, is chaotic. To carry the food along, would be extremely cumbersome. This is why the “DabbaWalla” comes helpful.

Basically you subscribe to the service, on a monthly base. You pay about 200 rupees per month. 4 Euro, in a world where the average salary would be about 10.000 rupees (200 Euro). Every day, the “DabbaWalla” men come and they pick up the lunch box from home. The food is then delivered to the working man wherever he is. Although the process of delivery is complex (involving quite impressive distances), the boxes never get lost. The system is completely standardized and the process runs very smoothly.

First of all, the lunch-box where the food is contained is placed in a bigger one. The bigger one is provided by the “DabbaWalla” has a standard form and it is clearly marked. The home food in its original container is placed in another standard modular box in order to facilitate the transportation.
As you can see from the images, each box has a big code painted on it. For instance, the code refers to the final destination. The informational system is color based. Every color carries a different meaning in terms of areas of city. Then, you have the codes, made out of letters and numbers. They refers to the final destinations (buildings, floors), as well as to the waypoints along the way (the station where they have to be delivered first, the station where they have to get off the train and so on. Also, there is always a part of the code referring to the carrier.

The wife cooks, the food is placed in its box, then the box, like in the Matrioska system gets placed into a bigger standardized one. The “DabbaWalla” comes, and picks the box. From there on, the operation is based on the local railway system and foot-messengers. The same “DabbaWalla” who came to your home goes to station where the boxes are sorted and clustered. At the station there is the first “hand-exchange”: there is a second person organizing them and carrying them into the train. The person on the train knows which boxes have to be drop at each station on the line.

The boxes are then handed over to another “relay” of the system. One per station. Now, our box has been moved from the original house to the train station. Traveled by train till its station where it gets taken by another person. The stations downtown have a new sorting system where the boxes get together upon their final destination. Now, the “terminal” DabbaWalla is ready to carry the box to the specific office where the hungry person is waiting for it.

All of this is quite impressive. Even more if you think that the average box moves about 40 kilometers per day. One way. This trip, in less than one hours.
In terms of quantity, although difficult to count, there are some estimate on how many boxes are carried around. A rough esteem would count about 200.000 boxes per day, involving about 4.500 carriers. In terms of economics, we could esteem an annual turnover of about 50 million Rupees (almost one million Euro). Also, the “DabbaWalla” are well-know for never losing any box.

The origin of the system can be traced all the way to one hundred years ago. By then, it was a small thing. It kept growing until the peak in the mid 70’s. In that period there has been the textile mill boom in Mumbay. All sudden you had hundred thousand people commuting every day, as we mentioned before, there was the lunch issue… Since then the population (as well as the economy) kept growing and this how we get to the present situation.

Also interesting is to note that this is really a Mumbay thing, not happening in other Indian metropolis. This is because of the long distances of commuting, the good local railway system and because of the specific “entrepreneur-oriented” attitude of the locals. Even in lower classes, people like very much to work in this kind of service oriented business.

We all know that India is a place where the service-oriented activities are well developed and refined. These descriptions refer to specific Indian features in the same way the Toyota “Just-in-time” system is linked to Japan. In the West, we could refer to a various number of supply chain management principles.
To us, “DabbaWalla” is interesting because, although the most important in terms of scale and efficiency, there are similar things in different fields.

Of course, “DabbaWalla” is special because it is amazingly efficient. Our photographer had problems running after them while taking pictures… Although carrying the loads, still the carriers were incredibly fast and to take picture not losing them has been a real difficulty.
Anyway, in any big Indian city, there are similar services referred to grocery deliveries, and other consumer oriented businesses.
In the past, (as well as in the present) big supermarket chains tried to enter the market, but the way the business is run by the local groceries makes it very difficult. I am home, I call the little shop, they carry whatever I want/need, very quickly and even if they don’t have what I want, they will find it (and deliver) for me.

There are even peculiar micro-businesses like the “shoe-laundry”. You call, they come to your house pick up your shoes and return them perfectly clean and polished. Or, think to the “Kabadiwalla”: the junkman. You call him (nowadays even the junkman own a cellphone), he comes to your home picking up paper, glass, metal… He always carries a scale, weights the different materials collected and pay you upon the weight.
Using the contemporary definition, these are all services to the consumers. Apart from these, there are also meaningful examples in the so called “business to business”. Although not completely legal, there are a lot of “banking-like” systems. If you want to transfer quickly money (especially cash), there are much faster ways then to go to a bank. You deposit cash in one point, you get a password, and the withdrawer to the other side goes to a specific place where, giving the password, he gets cash right away. Not even electronic banking can be so fast. Again, all these systems are based on complete trust. You can have this trust because all the people in the process do belong to the same community. The name for this service is “Angadias” and it comes out of the diamond trades and business.

Finally, after talking a lot about the service itself and similar ones, it is important to complete our description talking about the people running the service.

The majority of them belong to specific communities originated in little villages in Mumbay area. Also, it is important to notice that the system is not “vertical”. Operationally the system is horizontal. At the same time there is not “the boss” or the central office running the operation. The sense of responsibility comes because of the community spirit. This is probably one of the most distinct features of this system. We must also say that an important role is played by the association covering the various activities of the different carriers. The association is the place where the different issues are discussed, problems addressed via a system of regular meetings.

The service is run upon an highly “communitarian” structure. Common protocols, strict discipline and a shared agenda with common goals. Other distinct features worth to mention are the ones referred to the general micro-economy of it.
From the financial point of view, it is obvious that the “DabbaWalla” doesn’t need high investment or capital. The different carriers use bicycles, carts, public trains and a lot of foot-work. Still, there is a quite refined business model. The association is able to guarantee a number of sophisticated things like access to credit (if needed) as well as “social welfare” like guarantees (if you get ill, if you get an accident…). The price of the service comes out from a well-thought strategy: it is purposetly kept low, because the overall business is made out of the sheer volumes.

There important thing to mention is related to the social status. In the Indian culture, people like “DabbaWallas” are considered as “annadattas” (literally: the person who provides food). Upon tradition they are well respected and considered as a very trustworthy citizens.

(picture taken by Priya Mani)

A lot has been written (and seen) on the tuk-tuk and their prominent role in Bangkok impressive traffic landscape. Bangkok is a 8 million people city on a perennial traffic-jam. Regardless of the sky-train, of the newly built underground, the cars rule. Given this frame, the tuk-tuk (together with the moto-taxi) are the only possible chance to move quickly from a given point A to any point B in the map.

In the past, the tuk-tuk has been observed and analyzed as a clever and stunning design object. It has been even transformed into a fascinating series of pieces of art by Navin Rawanchaikul. This time, we want to introduce the reader to something different. The hidden side of the tuk-tuk universe: a day in the life of one of the thousand daring drivers, the ones who put their life at risk in Bangkok roads to carry us around.

Suntorn Muldee is 31 years old. He has been driving a Tuk-Tuk for living for already 6 years.

Like most of the drivers he is not from Bangkok. Originally he is from a small village in Roi-et, a province in North-eastern part of Thailand where the land is the less fertilized than the other part of the country. After finished his 6-year minimum education of elementary level, he left school and started to work as a farmer as everybody else his family.

At his early 20s, he left the village heading for the capital city seeking for a better life – a typical story of a man (and woman) from countryside. Through his connections of his village men who came to Bangkok earlier, he first got a job as in a mechanic. The internal immigration flow is often run by village connection. Other people from the same village are already in the big city and they are essential to provide support for the newcomer. The people from his same village found him a job as well as a place where to live.

So, he started his new metropolitan life as mechanic. After few years, he wanted to be more independent, and he managed to learn how to drive the tuk-tuk. Again it was a process run via connections and friends. Anyway, after some weeks spent on the road learning, he was able to move on, becoming a tuk-tuk driver.

To be a tuk-tuk driver, he had to past a driving exam for a license, which has to be renewed every year. We were curious to see his license, but for the moment it has been taken away by a policeman few weeks ago (because of a questionable parking). Luckily for him, Bangkok is the city where boundaries and rules are rather blurred. If the police stops him again, this fact that he has not the license can be fixed in multiple ways (unfortunately, most of them can’t be described in a printed article).

After he learned how to drive, Suntorn had to be introduced to the owner of the tuk-tuk. An important element of the tuk-tuk business is this fact that none of the drivers owns the machine. They rent it on a daily base, paying a daily fee to the owner. In this extent the tuk-tuk is radically different from the taxi. The taxi-driver often owns his car, while the tuk-tuk is always on a rental base.

In his case, the same friend from the village who taught him how to drive, guaranteed him with the tuk-tuk owner.
Suntorn explained to us that the person who owns the tuk-tuk he drives, has other 13 tuk-tuk, he is a very nice guy and he always helps the drivers when they have a problem with accidents or other unpleasant events.
Although all the cars have insurance, sometimes the insurance does not cover the full cost of the accident. If such a thing happen, then the nice owner helps to fix the whole.

His day starts at little bit after noon, when he wakes up. After putting on his uniform, of a light-blue shirt and dark pants, he leaves for work.
The uniform is something he bought because he likes to be ordered and clean. But it is not a given element.
The first thing of the day is to pray at home. After getting an important ‘supernatural’ support for his long day, he is ready to leave home. On the way walking to the tuk-tuk parking, he would have his first meal. His shift begins a 2 pm. lasting for 12 hours until 2 am.

The tuk-tuk are always going, on two shifts (2 am to 2 pm and 2 pm to 2 am), the same tuk-tuk is run by two drivers. To make things easy he shares is room with other three drivers. While two rests, two drives. The shift system allows the four of them to live in a two people room.
Finally, before to leave for his day, he has to pay the rent of the day, 270 Baht (5.4 Euro).

How much he would make in a day? Usually it is around 500-700 Baht. After the rent and the gas, 200-400 Baht (4-8 Euro) remains making his earn. So in a month he make about 5,000-7,000 Baht (100-140 Euro).
Is it little? Is it much? It depends from which point of view you take. Let’s see how much are his expense. The small room (of about 3.00 x 4.00 meter ) shared with the other three friends, is about 350 Baht per person per month. His roommates are people from the same town, driving a tuk-tuk or a taxi. The room has no toilet (shared with the other tenants in the building) and there is no kitchen. To ea, they simply go out to a food street venders – which you can find everywhere in Bangkok.

Suntorn has no family yet, no girlfriend either. He is rather happy with his single life run together with his friends. The money he earns is enough to send some monthly contribution to his parents who are farming in his village with his younger brother. He rarely goes back to his hometown, because the trip would cost him about 600 Baht (12 euro). Some of his roomates have a family (wife and children) in a village. In this case, they would go back every other month to visit them. Also during the wet rice season (June-August), several of them go back to work on their agricultural works related to their land.

In the day spent together, Suntorn took us in the different places related to his life. The tuk-tuk owner, the mechanic, the places where he eats and spend time with his friends. He was kind enough to take us to see his house and to meet the friends sharing his room. A lot of talk, a lot of interesting glimpses on their life. We talked about his work, his life, sport (they follow closely the Thai-boxe scene, because of the sport as well as the gambling related to it), politics.

Asking Suntorn about the recent election, he did not vote, because he did not want to pay for the expense of going back to his hometown. However, he is happy that Shinawatra Thaksin earned his second term. “As a prime minister, Thaksin is good, he does what he says. And he has made the economy better.” From Suntorn’s point of view, what Thaksin is doing is quite visible compared to the previous government.
We also talked about his future. Although he does not know too much about it, he is optimistic. For the time being he thinks to keep driving the tuk-tuk, because it is independent activity and, moreover, he does not know what else to do better.

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(R. Choochuey, S. Mirti, first published on Domus 826, May 2000).

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Japanese society has one major rule.

You are supposed to fold your body continously. You meet your friend: you bow. You enter a place (either a house or a public space), you bow. You leave, you bow.

Without folding your body you can’t have a social life. Therefore, just like in origami, there are several ways to fold your body.

How deep, how long, what movement of the head or movement of the body.
The more you fold, the more polite you are.

Chinese culture gave Japan almost everything. They gave them the idea of the State, the bureaucracy system, rational town planning (perfectly mastered in a city like Kyoto), the written language made of ideograms.

What did the Chinese get from Japanese culture? Basically one small thing: the folding fan.
The Japanese received the Chinese fan together with thousands of other precious things. They studied it and then improved it by making it foldable.

The same story applies to the lantern.

The Chinese had the paper lantern, the Japanese transformed it into a foldable object.
It is thanks to these little improvements that our life really changes.
Some people build great walls, great inventions, other make little improvements here and there. The Great Wall of China is astonishing, but to be able to fold my umbrella into my little pocket is even more astonishing.

Question about language

In Japanese “oru” or “ori” means to fold, at the same time it means to bend, to turn down and to give in, all with the same Chinese character. The character is actually composed of two radicals: the hand and the axe. When this character is combined with others, it gives several meanings. For example, the most famous one “origami”: to fold and paper.

To fold and to lay means to kneel down (orishiru).

To fold and to suit means to come to an agreement (oriau).

So when it comes together with the ‘kanji’ of “in the middle” it becomes to compromise, to cross and to blend, or even eclecticism. In a society like Japan, where confrontation is very unlikely, the only way is to compromise, to agree together, to blend, to give up (yours). While you have to show it outwardly by kneeling down, it seems that the key here is to “fold”.
To fold everything from your objects, your body as well as your mind.

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Fold your house, run your life

To most of us “Japanese” is often used as a synonym for “compact”, “miniaturized”, “foldable”.
People generally know that the Japanese reduce their objects, but we usually forget the reason why they do so.

If we take a look at some data, we can obtain rather interesting information. On October 1, 1998 there were about 126 million Japanese people. One out of three lived in Tokyo or Osaka. Since their islands have an incredible number of mountains and forests, they have to live cramped together. Their cities are full of people, their land is full of buildings.

Every household has an average income of about 5000 Euro per month.
In terms of industrial design, in order not be immersed by the objects you buy, to miniaturise is essential, to fold is imperative. In order to survive in such a tiny world you need to use a lot of intelligence.

In 1996, 129.937 patents were granted to Japanese applicants in Japan (in the same year in the United States there were 55.700 American patents). Many of these patents dealt with the issue of “compactness”. It is a very traditional issue, Japanese architecture has been always interlaced with this “folding”attitude.

To enter the traditional teahouse you have to fold. If you don’t fold you can’t enter: the entrance is very small precisely in order to oblige the body to fold. We could say that “to fold” is one of the main stripes of the Japanese DNA, it is one of their original characteristics: found in everything from the body to the house to the city. Even now, when you start building a new house, you call the Shinto priest. He comes with his little foldable shrine, a ceremony is quickly organised and the construction of the new house can start.

The house and its interior are a very good starting point for our exploration. If you have 11.24 tatami per person (in 1998), you must be very good at making a reasonable life for yourself (one tatami mat is about 0.90 x 1.80 mt).

Eleven tatami on which you are supposed to eat, sleep, meet your friend, relax, do everything. If you don’t have a folding attitude life, in your house you will not get very far.
The same thing can be said about urban space.

The open space is often too little, therefore you can find several ways to use it in different ways.
At night, Tokyo fills up with “yatai”, little movable and foldable food kiosks. As soon as the sun sets, they appear and stay open until the last train of the subway system. When the last train has gone, when the last client is on his way home, they fold up and disappear again.

Through this folding point of view, we can look at the entire history of Japanese architecture, from the models of tea houses popular at the beginning of the century, all the way to the “folding” tower of Arata Isozaki: a paper origami transformed into a steel landmark at the Mito Art Museum.
But then, if we are talking about contemporary architecture, there is an enormous group of people who are living a folding life 100% of the way.

If we judge people from the money they earn, they might not be the most successful, but if we use the folding parameter, they are our heroes by far.

We are talking about the homeless, the most incredible folders of present-day Japan.
If you believe in an architecture without architects, they might be the real stalkers of possible new ways of living in this new millennium.

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Image on top: traditional Japanese folding fan

(Edited by S. Mirti with texts by P. Arroyo, A. Barbara, A. Barrie, R. Choochuey, G. Frigo, I. Istek, S. Mirti, M. Pompili, first published on Hunch n. 1, Rotterdam, 1999

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Talking about Tokyo, another way to go around is to define a theme and to organize our observation around it.

At the beginning of the year 1999, the master students of Berlage Institute came to Tokyo for their field trip. The research theme set by prof. S. Boeri was: “Tokyo city of voids”. A full week spent around the city, searching for voids, ways to see it, to think about it, designing it.
It has been a very nice exercise (not only for the students, for all). Afterward, Hunch (a Dutch magazine) asked us an article on the experience.

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Omotesando voids

Now that you’ve been all over the city, you might want to see some fancy architecture – the stuff that gets published in magazines. OK, then we’ll go. First, get to Omotesando Subway Station, Exit Bl. Now you are near the Spiral Building by Fumihiko Maki. Go through it, to the toplit void at the rear. Now climb the spiral up to the shop and take a look at the city from above. After Maki’s void, it’s time to feel one by Tadao Ando. Go north then east from the Spiral: the place is “Collezione” – you can’t miss it: huge build¬ing, huge void. From here, it’s a short walk to Rurururu Abou, by Saito. Please, after noting the closed exterior, put your nose to the glass door and observe the internal atrium filled with bamboo plants.

Another short walk brings you to Senden Kaigi by Kitagawara: a four-story void with four-story-high doors that open every morning and close every night.
After seeing these buildings, we may begin to think of void as an oxymoron that links aesthetic perception of life and fragmentation of existence.

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Old Canals system

Tokyo used to be a city built upon a canal structure – something like Venice. But Tokyo is in continuous flux: buildings are transformed, structures are changed, nothing remains as it was. So, if you want to understand the city’s original structure, rent a car and get up on the freeway system. The canal voids have been transformed into freeway voids.

Where there were canals, we now have suspended motorways. Void becomes an alternative notion of space, a chronic phenomenon, structural and generic, a force that rules the city as a whole, in a centrifugal way. If you do this at night, it is an experience you will never forget – it’s like being in Akira’s world.

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Residential areas

Tokyo is not like New York; Tokyo is a low-rise city with hectares and hectares of residential areas. Japanese law says that if you want to buy a car, you must have a parking place. It is not permitted to park cars along the street. The result? Hectares and hectares of city without any cars. Cars are gone; they’ve disappeared.

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Kuwait Embassy, (Kenzo Tange)

In Tokyo, whatever is built is already predicted to be destroyed; whatever is cut from the void of the city is meant to be returned for the sake of a bigger project. That is why Tokyo is a forest of construction sites. Even award-winning architecture has a life span of a decade. Hidden rules constitute the temporary invasion of voids. Chaos is a result of order. The scale of the invasion is enormous, yet with no casualties.
Given this frame, go and see the Kuwait Embassy, near Tamachi Station on Yamanote Line. It is a work by Kenzo Tange from the sixties. It is a jewel, a precious stone, an encyclopedia of voids condensed in a single building.
Most people don’t know about it. Too bad for them. Some other architectural master-pieces have already disappeared in Tokyo: so, hurry up before it’s gone!

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Lower City Suburbs: Threads of Silence

Go to one of the suburbs of the lower city (Shitamachi). Gentle narrow streets, no cars, green everywhere – a Tokyo that is much more real and alive than the skyscrapers of Shinjuku. Once there, try this experiment: follow a void of sound. It seems difficult, but it is not. First, choose a sound. Then walk in the places where you can’t hear this sound, in the bubble full of sound-void. If you encounter the sound, stop until it disappears. Only then, during its absence, may you start again.
During this game, your path and your pace are decided by the city, the miles from the sounds, the directions from the voids. In Tokyo, there is a sort of sound net in the secondary streets interwoven with noises of primary ones. There are cities with channels to be sailed, towns with catacombs in which to hide, villages with sloped roofs to be flown over…

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Image on top: Kenzo Tange, Kuwait Embassy, Tokyo, 1970.

(Rachaporn Choochuey, Stefano Mirti, first published on Domus 828, July/August 2000)

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To a Western eye these pictures represent some very strange setting, a completely artificial landscape, a concept that seems to have come from a sci-fi movie. From the Japanese point of view however, there is nothing new in the attitude they convey; indeed it is deeply embedded in local traditions and habits.

Think, for instance, of the traditional teahouse and the way it works. You have the little wooden hut, the tatami mats on the floor, the tea ceremony utensils. Then, when you start to sip your green tea, your eye is caught by a small window, through which you glimpse a garden. The window is a passage to a parallel dimension. You are sitting in the teahouse but your mind floats away, borne by the incredible trickery used in the organization of Japanese gardens.

The teahouse and garden are a very sophisticated machine. It allows you to make incredible mind trips without moving as much as a centimeter from your special. It is a “controlled environment”, a system in which it is impossible to distinguish the natural from the artificial. Natural and artificial are a Western concept, originating from Western tradition. And it is very useful to define Western products.

Is a Bonsai, for instance, natural or artificial?

And the Zen garden of Ryoanji, or Ikebana compositions? It is not so distant from the pictures shown here. Is this a real French town, or is it the most successful shopping mall built in Japan in the last five years? Are we in a squalid suburb of Tokyo, or on a tropical beach? Basically it is impossible to clearly define the boundary. The Japanese mind doesn’t make much difference. If you have the chance you go skiing in Nagano or Sapporo, but it is simpler to go instead to the Skidome, which is only half of an hour from downtown Tokyo.

What is interesting is to notice the continuous process of blurring of this boundary. First you start to build environments that look exactly like nature. Then, you force nature into the artificial environment; and in this sense the Sea Observatory is something absolutely extraordinary: an artificial box through which to get a view of the Ocean. The concept of place is flattened out, the seasons don’t exist anymore, and this peculiar approach begins to affect everyday life too: golfing on the top of a parking lot, skiing in a box, bathing on a beach with fake sand and surfing on fake waves, go shopping in a place that looks exactly like Florence or Nice.

Where will all this lead next? Will the next step be to add psychedelic features to the working environment or to make the living room of your house look like the dark side of the moon?

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Yokohama Wild Blue - (unfortunately, since we wrote the article the place was closed down)

You are on the metropolitan train bound to Yokohama, and you notice teenagers with surfboards. Where are they going? It is early March, the ocean must be freezing. Who prefers a tropical setting to the Alps, he can go to this paradise on the outskirts of Yokohama.
As you would expect, the temperature is 35 degrees and people are sweating under the artificial lamps waiting for the big waves to come in every 15 minutes.
If the waves are not enough you can lay on the plastic sand and gaze at the painted sky on the roof of the metal box that contains this other artificial world.

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Golf Driving Range – (just outside Oji Station on the Namboku Line)

If you are keen on golf and are a Japanese, this could be a problem (especially if you are not extremely rich). If you want to play golf in a natural setting, it is cheaper to fly to Thailand or Bali than to pay the rates of a Japanese golf course.
The solution is easy: a building with hundreds of little cells, open towards a huge net (one of the most common urban landmarks of Japanese cities, and now spreading all over Asia, from Indonesia to China). From 6 am to 1 am they are filled by a constant flow of players, of both sexes and all limits.

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Skidome – (2-3-1 Hama-cho, Funabashi-shi, Chiba Prefecture. Minami Funabashi station on Keiyo Line).

We are in a Tokyo suburb, with low-cost housing all around, factories, docklands, as far as you could possibly imagine from a natural environment.
Regardless of the season, witner or summer, week in week out, thousands of people troop into this freezing artificial landscape. From outside it looks like some prehistoric monster, an enormous standing caterpillar. Inside, it is colder than Siberia, with real snow, skiers and snowboarders. Not to mention the funniest things of all: escalators instead of ski lifts!

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Sea Observatory Deck – (6 Rinkai-cho, Edogawa-ku. JR Kasai Rinkai-koen Station on Keiyo Line).

There are some places where the difference between Japan and the rest of the world can be measured in light-years. A seaside resort might be imagined as a place where you can smell the briny ocean, feel the wind and sun on your skin, and hear the seagulls in the distance. Actually, it is exactly the opposite.
When you get to the sea, you enter a sealed box. There is no smell, no wind, nothing but the sense of sight. If this is not enough, at the back there are video-boxes, explanatory panels and computer animations to tell you what it really feels like to be by the sea.

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Venus Fort - (Aomi Station on Yurikamone Monorail (you take it at Nihonbashi Station on Yamanote Line).

The latest step.
The previous places are built for people to spend their free time in. But in this place, leisure is mixed with shopping. You go shopping in a theme park. Fake city, fake streets, fake sky. The only real things are products on sale. With one million visitors per month, this is the smoothest selling device in Japan for this beginning of new millennium.

This Venus Fort shopping mall really caught my heart. It is strange, because in theory I should dislike it very much (at least upon the values I was educated to like). It is something like an horror-movie. It is horror, still you are very happy to pay the ticket to watch it…

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Image on top: Yokohama Wildblue

(Rachaporn Choochuey, Stefano Mirti, first published on Domus 835, March 2001)

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Elephant Design, a Tokyo based consultancy, is using the web to ask the Japanese to think up products that they would like to be designed for them, and then to take orders for manufacturers to make the results.

While the dot com bubble has well and truly burst, one Tokyo based entrepreneur, Kohei Nishiyama of Elephant Design has come up with an innovative new approach to e-businness; using the Internet to allow consumers to commission tailor made designs directly from his website: www.cuusoo.com. What makes the project really stand out is the way in which it tries to bridge the gap between consumer, designer and the smaller Japanese manufacturers looking to diversify.

With Japan rapidly moving production offshore to the lower wage cost economies of China, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan’s huge army of specialist subcontractors is in crisis, loosing a large part of their traditional market. Many have gone bankrupt, and there is worse to come.

Elephant Design’s research suggests that some 40 per cent of Japan’s subcontractors will be cut out of the supply chain this year.

Those who have managed to survive and even prosper have been able to switch from supplying components to Toyota or Sony and have started to make and market original products on their own account.

And that is where Nishiyama saw an opportunity. There are about 420.000 small factories that have the potential to produce limited runs of high quality goods. “But even if theyou acknowledge the importance of developing an original product, most of these companies lack strategic abilities, ideas and designers. They are mostly small family businesses, with just a few outside workers”, he says.

“It’s a paradox: they have the traditional Japanese skills to make perfect products but without knowing what to do”. Elephant Design defines such companies as potential manufacturers for new products. With financial support from the Ministry of Trade’s new economy investment program, Elephant Design is trying to build a bridge between this army of small manufacturers and freelance designers in Japan.

“In terms of new economy, this is the niche that interests our company the most, to fill the needs of the small manufacturers, and at the same time providing clients for the freelance designers. Good design is one important factor that makes the difference for the product in the market. The point is how to inject good design into the traditional product system of the family business” says Nishiyama.

In Japanese the word ‘cusooo’ means ‘ideal’ or ‘daydream’. Nishiyama’s key concept for www.cuusoo.com is rather than the build to order principle which underlies much modern large scale manufacturing, the idea of design to order.

“After registration the consumer can order from a catalogue of existing products on show on the home page. But if they can’t find exactly what they are looking for, they can post their own ideas for an ‘ideal’ product on the site. For examplet, ‘I would like to buy a cellular phone, made out of transparent plastic, coloured, and soft’. If other visitors like the posted idea, and if we at Elephant Design finds the idea suitable then the design process can begin.

Elephant Design acts as a go between; providing a designer to realize the original visitor’s idea, contacting the appropriate manufacturer, estimating the cost and feasibility of the product.
After financial analysis, the new product is posted on the website in a three dimensional rendering, with the price and the minimun order required to make production feasible. Then, if there are sufficient orders, the product will be made and delivered to the on-line customers”.

In the long term Elephant Design would like to turn the site into something close to a convenience store that allows customers to order their ideal products and get them delivered to their homes.

The site was launched in December 1999, and at the end of its first year of operation, the number of signed up members had reached 12.000. According to Nishiyama each of them has ordered at least one product. From January 2001, a new section has been added, a bulletin board through which visitors can communicate and give their reaction to each product directly.
So far three products have reached the market through this process: a mobile phone case, a cd case and a computer. Nishiyama concedes that it hasn’t been as rapid as he had hoped. “People had trouble in understanding the process at first, but it is working successfully now. Later this year three more products will be available: a telephone, a rice cooker and a mobile phone.
Currently 67 products have already been designed and are on-line waiting for enough orders to start manufacturing. There are also other 7.000 ideas posted by our website visitors waiting to be designed”.

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Link to an interesting article featuring Elephant Design on pingmag

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Image on top: Klein Dytham Architecture, Washing Machine, 2000.

Matteo Pastore asks Ettore Sottsass about his life through travelling the world, Thursday February 3rd 2000, Milan.

First published on Art4d, Bangkok, 2000

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In December we were invited in Thailand to take part in a workshop titled “City of Water”; we were one of many groups from all over the world. The aim of the workshop was to make projects along the river.In the first week at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok we developed the projects from the original idea to the construction with the help from the students of the faculty.After this we left Bangkok on the boats leading North along the Chao Phraya river; five days and four stops where, every evening, we built a kind of city made up of our installations.
“Moving Architecture, a special issue of art4d will be a sum-up of “City of Water” but enriched with different contributions.
Your experience seemed to us perfect for this particular issue…

E.S.: but did you do this for yourselves or for an audience?

It was thought for an audience, always different according to the situation. For example the first evening we arrived in Ayuthaya quite late and we were alone…

E.S.: you know, my experiences are naturally of a completely different kind. I mean, I travelled, I looked around and I tried to eat well, if possible. One day I was in the square in Bangkok and I was gazing at the market, which is one of the most beautiful things in the world – full of orchids, roses, fruits I didn’t even know the name of – and we hear ratatatatrr… and we see that all the people from the stalls slowly start to pack up their things and to go away… at a certain point I asked one of these guys “what is happening here?” and he says “there is a state coup”. So we ran to the hotel, where we were blocked in for two days because of the state coup, and then the Generals reached an agreement with the others.

What I want to say is that I have always had experiences from the outside towards me, I never took part, as you have done, physically to modify or understand the place better.

And the experience of Metaphors? That is to synthetically build in places…

E.S.: ..yes, yes, that one I did in Spain but not in such a far away and exotic place. Those days I would never even have thought of doing things like this.
It has passed to you…

They seem comparable experiences. You went to the desert and what did you think about doing? The airport for ants.

E.S.: yes of course, that’s why I asked what you did. I can never understand these operations, in general, in contemporary art without –how to say– a title, without a scope. Because my metaphors were called Metaphors, they had a title; I mean the one of the animals was to say that contemporary production produces for us a load of things which we don’t need – as the ants don’t need a motorway for the ants, or we don’t need a TV for moths. They always had some kind of ethical or political starting point, or whatever you want to call it.

In our case the starting point, with some kind of freedom, was for all the groups the theme of water and the river. The common ground was the confrontation with the landscape around us and the people we met along the way; investigating the sensibility of people, of very different situations – at some point we also experienced situations on the verge of folklore.

E.S.: I think it is very important that you experienced this situation especially for yourselves. For you, because you have experimented this nomadism; I mean, the truck that arrived in places at night, by day, dismantle in an unknown place – I think it’s an experience that gives existence a structure, to you especially.

I will tell you a story, on this river (Chao Phraya): one day they took us to have lunch in a restaurant on the river shore with one of those long boats with the long engine behind. It was awfully hot and heat for me is like a drug, it excites me. They brought us a kind of boiling hot samovar, boiling water with fish inside it, vapours, wine or alcohol. I don’t know what it was, but instead of bringing cold stuff with ice, like the Americans would have done, they brought steaming stuff. I was so happy to have eaten boiling hot stuff, with lots of spice; in a state of total ecstasy to the point that on the way back, on the boat down the river, I said to Barbara [Radice – one of his lifetime girlfriends] “I want to commit suicide right now!”. She says “why?” – “because I will never be as happy as this moment”.

I want to say that the contact with the surrounding world – with this novelty of strong heat, the exoticness of the tropical landscape, the unexpected food, the silences, the noises, the different smells and scents – made me feel, through a form of yoga, abandoning every conceptualism, for a moment in a state of total ecstasy, bliss. Nothing really mattered and everything mattered in the same moment. It was a non-conceptual event, a completely physical event, like yoga, through which you reach a state of total blessing.

All the experiences I’ve had in general in the Far East are experiences of this kind, that is experiences of ecstasy. Already the unexpected, unusual, environment, like Indian architecture or this picture of Ayuthaya – they are so unexpected and strong that all the idea we have of architecture, when you get there, it falls apart in many pieces and it leaves another one. You end up with an Architecture that has an origin of, how to say… of spiritual exaltation.
So when I read that you wanted to do this journey I really thought that, more than a conceptual experience, you wanted to have a kind of more physical experience; because these places are physically different from ours: the scents, the food, the heats, the waters.

This experience of ecstasy you were talking about before, reminds us of the experience of the Sublime as referred to by some German romantics – of being assailed by something totally incommensurable. Here, as in where we live now, is something of this kind conceivable? Something that has an exotic taste?

E.S.: this is a nice question. I am too old to answer it. I think that young people that go to the disco to sweat a lot, to experiment sound as a physical experience, to consume their existence into nothing – I mean in this big mess – I think, I hope that this will lead them to a similar form. In fact they go there, they go because of fear, fear of what is outside; just as there is an excitement, for some young people, to ride a motorbike at 250 Km per hour.

The ecstasy experiences we are talking about are, in reality, the search for something that anyway we already know – a form of communication that I usually can’t afford – while before you were talking about an absolutely unexpected and displacing discovery.

E.S.: no, it’s not a discovery, the discovery is the means to find… one takes ecstasy, the other smokes marijuana, the other drinks, another one fucks, the other one jumps from the eighth floor.
It’s clear that everyone is afraid and we try to forget this fear in some way. We fear existence, the body; we cant give a reason to existence and this, in some way, is something that automatically installs fear. Obviously young people are less afraid, because they are stronger, more courageous and they see less…

But, after all, everyone is different from the other. Even when I was young and madly in love of a girl in Torino, we used to walk up the hill and sit down to look at the sunset, it was already like a terrifying perception of the day passing by, of the fact that I would live with her one day less. A feeling of disaster more than a feeling of construction, and it is there, it has always been there since when they started to mark signs on cave walls.

So I got the habit to think about things, about drawing, also about work in these terms. I mean, how can we brighten up this fear through the presence of an object or through travels; how can I brighten up seeing that there are other people that do other things, how can I get used to this cosmic multiplicity instead of having fear of it.

Which is, in reality, what you have done. After all, I think that the primary – primitive – spur for this journey you took is to see, to get out of the province let’s say, the personal province. That’s why I asked you if there were any people and if there was a communication with them, not as spectators, but in the sense of somebody else with whom you may chat, that laugh or cry, that want to send you away, or that greet you… or something else.

In some cases we had some unexpected reactions, tricky things in connection to their religion and also to the Thai perception, which is different from ours, from our culture. For example: the Bull installation should have been burned at the end of the trip, on the last stop along the river, but there was some misunderstanding – their first excuse was for safety reasons and only later, talking about it, we understood that fire has a religious significance; in fact Thais burn their dead, therefore to burn the Bull would have been a kind of sacrilege…

E.S.: ah, this becomes more interesting. It would give a reason to your work.

Going back to our theme, which is “moving architecture”, in your life you have had different experiences: you faced architecture as a definition, i.e. the built one, quite late – a part a brief period with your father at the beginning. This must have happened for coincidences but also because you did other things: Metaphors, jewels, ceramics, travels…

E.S.: …no, no, but I was making architecture doing ceramics, jewels…

Moving Architecture probably means this also, to make ceramics and jewels, the Pianeta Fresco magazine. Especially in the 70’s you did metaphors, The Planet as a Festival, the “Italy, The New Domestic Landscape” exhibition, that is almost the definition of moving architecture itself, on wheels. In those years you said: “…to demolish solid states to reach a more fluid phase of existence…”.

These are introductory themes, because those experiences are also partly based on different assumptions: it is as if we took out of the hotchpotch the core of movement. So, what happens to architecture – that is for our tradition the expression of fixity, of perfection – what happens when you put it in motion, when you start moving it?

The object that I design now is a project that fortifies my sense of domesticness, that is related to a precise space, or is a more personal object, that I can take around with me and hence reinforces my need to be mobile? And if I take it around with me, do I still need it or do I realise I don’t need it any more?

E.S.: well, you still need your camera… it is yours, personal, you take it around with you, it’s the object you desire.

So we thought that you had in some way faced these issues…

E.S.: yes, but in a slightly different way, as an aspiration more than anything else; you did this and it’s good for you. For example, if I design a house for someone now – and as you know I design only private houses – I don’t design architecture for institutions, which makes a big difference because an institution is static in itself, while a private individual divorces, he gets married, has children… in a word he is more mobile.

In private houses, because you can’t move architecture it in itself but you can move it inside, you can start to make different rooms, with a big window, with a little window, a dark one and a bright one, one looking one direction, the other looking the other way…

Therefore you imagine architecture as a given chance for sentimental or psychic movement, or in any case the movement of the resident, you seek an internal movement. The family modifies in time, men and women change or the day changes. One day you may feel like crying and you go to a small dark room, one day you are happy and you want to go out. Physical nomadism, so to say, to go around with an object – the first thing that came to my mind is a camera, because it’s the only object i carry with me a part from my suitcase.

Ancient Indians didn’t have furniture because they eat with their hands, they sat on the ground, their clothes were a single sheet that could be folded into a small packet, they went around bare-footed or with sandals, but they had an object which was a bowl. The only necessary object was, in this case, a bowl, for water, for soup, for salad. This they actually took it around, and you see pictures of these guys going around with a stick, some kind of fabric on their shoulders and a bowl behind… this is a very meaningful thing.

It’s strange that it is the nomad populations that really tend to keep a few fixed and tested objects, while the sedentary populations paradoxically are those that have to undergo the deepest transformations, that are assailed by consumption…

E.S.: they are conditioned, plagiarised. In nomadism there are recurring, archaic states that are, for example: to eat, to cover oneself from cold, to undress from heat. After all, probably, if one would seek he would find such recurring states, that can be reduced to the minimum.

The nomads of Central Asia, for example, carried around their carpet, that was for me the definition of a human ground as opposed the surrounding disaster of glaciers, mountains, of extreme heights. The tent and the carpet, and then the other objects are really minimal.
I don’t know how a contemporary nomadism can be…

And from the point of view of who deals with objects?

E.S.: I don’t know how it may be, I have a strong inclination to reduce the quantity of objects as more as possible. To reduce possession, the concept of possession; because a nomad is really a nomad because he doesn’t own land, isn’t it? He doesn’t own land which is the primal form of possession, he doesn’t own a house and doesn’t possess land.

But in a certain sense technology could be used to lighten the weight?

E.S.: we suppose it’s like that, but unfortunately I don’t think it really is so.

They say that now books will come to an end because of Internet, but I don’t know what is more comfortable or interesting: to read a book when you can or to stay there with your eyes in front of a screen. Something that is useful is useful on one side, but it is a bother under other aspects; cell-phones are useful but they are a bother because they accelerate the time of decisions.

They oblige you to take decisions too quickly, I think. I personally am not ready for this kind of speed, it may be that the young generations will, or better they already live in this state of permanent acceleration. That’s why I said before that I can’t answer, I can’t say anything.

For what concerns the temporal dimension, also in architecture there is surely a difference between East and West; we think of architecture as forever, while they don’t. In India, in Japan or also in Thailand, the temples are continuously transformed, there is also a movement in that sense.

E.S.: but in temples there is another element that plays an important role which is the religious aspect, I mean, the idea of eternity, of what is after death. These temples are made of solid stone even if thanks to god they slowly start to fall apart. But they paint them: once I saw a beautiful thing in India; a temple, an entire temple with a courtyard and columns – it seems that one day the mayor of the city had decided that it was to be newly decorated, so he put about twenty tanks full of colours, red, yellow… and he said to his people “come inside and paint what you want with the colour you want” – and the temple was beautiful!

The result was fantastic, but my opinion doesn’t count because I like coloured things.

We wanted to know two things. One is: what do you think the relation is between architecture and the senses, and when designing is there now still space for the senses, to feel a passion for this? The second thing is: when we did the “City of Water” project we had to deal with water every day, so what relation can architecture have with water, and in your design experiences have you ever had to deal with water, what importance did you give it?

E.S.: well, I have always thought and written that the world is read through senses first and then with intellect, so I think that the stories one can tell have always a, so to say, a sensorial starting point. I often say, just to explain, that a table-top for many people, for engineers, is a geometrical surface; for me it is wood, or glass, or marble but not only.

Take this table [the table in his studio], it’s thick because it has to be less surface and more volume. Just now I told you my story of the river which is completely sensorial from beginning to end: scents, heat, tastes.

I am very sceptical about the definition of architecture as a mental structure, so I am very sceptical about the operations by engineers, about Mr. Foster’s skyscrapers which I don’t consider architecture. I consider these things as interesting structures, but not architecture, because I believe that architecture begins with a door, that is when you go from outside to inside, or when you are inside you see outside, actually other sensorial operations.

I haven’t had much to do with water, to be honest, apart from the fact that I’m always very excited by the presence of water, be it a river, the sea or just a stream. Every time I can next to a house I put a little pond, because the pond reflects the sky and the seasons and so on. After all, this is also a tale of the senses. I think that the presence of water, also for you, must have been a sensorial adventure… to see the world slowly passing by.

I have always said that, for me, all the journeys I took were a kind of encyclopaedic collection of sensorial emotions, that I can then use as a vocabulary with words to tell stories. Experiences of the senses are like many words: today I could make a small ceramic bowl circled by a chromed thing, here is a small sensorial tale, about perception, about things. And this can be done designing architectures. The floors are one thing, the walls are another, narrow corridors are one thing, wide corridors another… all is an event, a sensorial story – architecture.

Moreover you must also bare in mind, I always think about it, that sensoriality immediately becomes culture. I mean, in reality a ‘pure’ sensoriality does not exist but sensoriality is filtered by history, in the sense that you are a contemporary being, your sensoriality is filtered by contemporarity. Before I said chromed, for example, that is an object of contemporary sensoriality – the ancients didn’t have it.

And it’s the same for tastes, the same for leaves, the same for everything. So any sensorial event carries with it a definition, a sense, a meaning. If you have a red jumper, that red can stimulate different ideas – it’s not only red, it can be an Hybiscus, or you can think of the Communist flag, or the blood I saw when I hurt myself, fire or… eroticism – there is not only one perception of that particular red. But perception begins from the fact that I recognise that colour as red, even before you know what you think, what you do or what you are.

I think that architecture… But these [a temple in Ayuthaya] are not architecture, these are monuments, they are other kinds of stories, they are comic-strips, they have lots of history on top of them. Structure doesn’t concern them at all, but they are very concerned with the internal sensory itinerary, so you go from wide rooms with lots of daylight through progressively narrow spaces, until you reach the end an you get to a dark cell – that is where you find the secret, the final one.

So you understand that sensoriality is not pure, it passes through these meanings, these emotions, let’s say. It is complicated, I am not a philosopher.

In your journeys you have had personal, sensorial experiences, but in more recent times you have built something in these exotic places. We wanted to know about your own working experience with people of such different culture.

E.S.: we had the strongest one in China, in Communist China, where we built a Golf Club; because workers arrive on the site with their families, and they don’t have homes because they come from far away, and this place was in the middle of the hills. So the workers there live on the site while it grows, with curtains suspended on strings to divide spaces.

There I had a feeling of great serenity, I felt more as a companion of this event than they did of mine, of architecture I mean. But then it happens that one day they get bored and they go away, and you – the architect – say: “bloody hell, now I am here and I don’t know how to go on”. It’s a very sophisticated relation, socially sophisticated, let’s say.

Because we have this idea that in architecture you can make programs and then you build well – but there you can make a program only up to a certain point. I had found some green bricks they use over there in traditional farmhouses and I said “alright, let’s build a huge wall with these beautiful bricks”, and almost ruined the guy that made them, because he was used to making 10 bricks a day and all of a sudden he had to make 500. Also this was an operation, a social wound let’s say, a social aggression.

So to produce architecture in those conditions meant doing something that is certainly not doing architecture. Because we produce architecture mostly abroad we have the problem of the so called ‘site architect’, someone from there, who knows the legal problems about construction, permits, contractors and so forth.

But the site architect that comes to work for you is always a second-rate architect because, if he were a great architect he would be doing business on his own – so there are always problems also there, psychological, cultural relations, small psycho-dramas. This is part of the business and some time it also influences architecture itself, it modifies the project. That’s why we slowly become older, and that’s why it is good for you to travel.

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(Stefano Mirti, first published for “La memoria degli oggetti” exhibition, Achille Castiglioni office / museum, Milano, 2005)

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1918. il 16 febbraio 1918 la Lituania ottiene l’indipendenza e Achille Castiglioni nasce a Milano (nessun legame tra le due, ma la coincidenza sembra curiosa). A Vienna regnano gli Asburgo (ancora per poco), mentre in Russia c’e’ gia’ stata la Rivoluzione d’Ottobre. Lenin, Trotsky e Bucharin sono al lavoro, gli Hohenzollern contano i giorni.

Il papa’ Giannino e’ scultore e insegna all’Accademia di Brera. Come dira’ successivamente l’Achille: ‘Io e i miei fratelli abbiamo respirato sin da piccoli l’odore del gesso e della plastilina’. Per intendersi, le mani della statua di San Francesco in piazza Sant’Angelo sono quello del giovane Achille.

1931. Milano raggiunge un milione di abitanti (un quarto entro le Mura Spagnole, il resto oltre le mura).

1938. I fratelli maggiori, Livio (1911-1979) e Pier Giacomo (1913-1968), aprono lo studio di corso di Porta Nuova con Luigi Caccia Dominioni. Achille inizia a collaborare con loro mentre e’ ancora studente. Il 19 di giugno, di fronte a 60.000 spettatori allo Stade Olympique de Colombes l’Italia batte l’Ungheria 4 a 2 e diventa campione del mondo di calcio per la seconda volta. L’allenatore e’ Vittorio Pozzo e gli undici eroi sono: Olivieri, Foni, Rava, Serantoni, Andreolo, Locatelli, Biavati, Meazza, Piola, Ferrari, Colaussi. Un milione e’ il numero degli abbonati alla radio (un apparecchio ogni cinquanta abitanti). 23.945 sono i posti di ascolto pubblico posizionati nelle scuole dello Stivale.

Due anni prima la Fiat ha fatto uscire la Fiat 500 (subito soprannominata: Topolino). Dante Giacosa e’ il progettista, il costo e’ di 8.900 lire pari a dieci mensilita’ dello stipendio di un bancario.
38.000 sono le automobili immatricolate in quell’anno.

1939. In Italia circolano 290.000 automobili (molto poche, pero’ ancora, un salto rispetto alle 222.000 del 1936). E’ l’anno in cui i fratelli Castiglioni progettano la radio Phonola: la prima radio italiana in plastica (per l’esattezza, in bakelite). Vincera’ la Medaglia d’Oro alla Triennale del 1940.

1940. Achille continua gli esperimenti sul prodotto industriale assieme ai fratelli. Nel contempo Mussolini conta: ‘otto milioni di baionette’ e si appresta a dichiarare guerra agli Stati Uniti d’America. Sono oramai quattro anni che la Fiat ha in produzione la ‘Topolino’, la Piaggio produce aerei per la Regia Aeronautica. L’ERR (Ente Radio Rurale) diffonde la propaganda fascista in un paese ancora contadino. Nel 1939 la Radiomarelli presenta il più piccolo ricevitore di produzione italiana: il Balilla. Solo 2 chili di peso, economico e funzionale si conquista un vasto mercato come ricevitore domestico.

1942. Gli abbonati alla radio raggiungono quota un milione e ottocentomila. Quelli al telefono sono invece 346.733 (che si ridurranno a 269.772 nel 1945). Il nostro Achille continua a studiare.

1944. Laurea in Architettura. Altri designer italiani che hanno conseguito la laurea in architettura: Luigi Caccia Dominioni, Ettore Sottsass, Marco Zanuso, Franco Albini, Ignazio Gardella, Roberto Menghi. Il design industriale non si impara a scuola (non esistendo ancora).
Nel frattempo l’Italia e’ spezzata in due. A sud sono gia’ sbarcati gli Anglo-americani, mentre il nord e’ occupato dai tedeschi. Le grandi citta’ del nord (Torino, Milano, Genova) subiscono pesanti bombardamenti. Il paese e’ in ginocchio.

1945. La guerra e’ finita. In Italia inizia la ricostruzione. Mentre l’Europa esce piegata dal secondo conflitto, gli Stati Uniti sembrano in tutto e per tutto un altro mondo: l’Oceano Atlantico non e’ mai stato cosi’ largo. Per intendersi, e’ l’anno in cui gli Eames disegnano la ‘LCW’ (Lounge Chair Wood).
Esiste dichiarazione scritta (datata 1/1/1945) di quell’anno, in cui i due fratelli Achille e Pier Giacomo stabiliscono la collaborazione professionale.
In quest’anno si contano 1.25 abbonamenti al telefono ogni 100 abitanti (che impiegheranno dieci anni a diventare 3.71). Per ora solo il 47% dei comuni e’ coperto da servizio telefonico. La tariffa telefonica a fisso viene sostituita dai contatori.

1946. I fratelli Castiglioni riprendono gli esperimenti sul prodotto industriale. Inizia una pluriennale attivita’ di ricerca sulle forme, le tecniche e i materiali nuovi tendente alla realizzazione di un processo di progettazione integrale.
L’anno precedente era uscito il primo modello di Vespa, disegnata da Corradino d’Ascanio. Per la Lambretta si dovra’ aspettare sino all’anno successivo (1947). Il progettista in questo caso e’ Cesare Pallavicino. Gli eroi nazionali sono Coppi e Bartali; nel calcio, il grande Torino vince tutto quello che si puo’ vincere.
Numero di italiani che votarono per la Repubblica: 12717.923. Per la Monarchia: 10.719.284. Umberto II lascia Ciampino il 13 giugno. Automobili prodotte in quell’anno: 10.984 (l’anno dopo saranno 25.375, arrivando a 44.425 nel 1948).

1947. Achille Castiglioni partecipa alla Triennale di Milano. Da questa edizione sara’ presente a tutte le Triennali, in particolare come membro del comitato ordinatore e allestitore. Numerose le opere esposte, piu’ volte premiate. Dall’altra parte dell’oceano, gli Eames iniziano a costruire la loro casa a Pacific Palisades.

1948. 14 Luglio. Attentato a Togliatti. La rivoluzione viene evitata grazie alla vittoria di tappa di Gino Bartali al Tour de France. Alla fine dell’anno circolano in Italia 218.539 automobili. Inizia la produzione in serie della sedia ‘Barcelona’ di Mies van der Rohe (prodotta in serie limitata per il padiglione tedesco a Barcellona nel 1929).

1949. In Italia e’ l’anno della fine del tesseramento post-bellico di pane e pasta.

1950. Continua l’attivita’ di sperimentazione e ricerca dei fratelli Castiglioni. Iniziano a realizzare allestimenti per esposizioni (Triennale di Milano, Montecatini, Agip, Rai). Achille inizia la sua attivita’ critica collaborando con la rivista “Stile e Industria”. Gli italiani continuano a impazzire per il ciclismo. L’anno precedente e’ quello del famoso duello tra Coppi e Bartali al Giro d’Italia. Buzzati segue il tutto come inviato del Corriere (e il resto e’ storia). Per la inaugurazione della Scala ricostruita, Arturo Toscanini rientrato dall’America dirige il Falstaff trasmesso dalla radio. L’indice della produzione torna ai livelli del 1938. Il periodo della cosiddetta ‘ricostruzione’ e’ terminato.

1951. Il censimento conta 47,5 milioni di italiani. Di cui il 12.9% analfabeti. In termii di occupazione abbiamo il 42.2% di lavoratori nell’agricoltura, il 32.1% nell’industria, il 25.7% nel terziario. Il servizio telefonico nazionale e’ in vigorosa ripresa. A fine anno sono in funzione 1.382.438 apparecchi principali e derivati (di cui il 92% e’ in automatico). Per l’anno successivo (1952) tutti i comuni italiani saranno collegati alla rete telefonica nazionale. L’inchiesta sulla miseria ci fa sapere che in quell’anno il 5,8% delle famiglie del Nord sono povere. Al sud siamo al 50.2%. E’ anche l’anno del ‘Miei cari amici vicini e lontani…’ di Nunzio Filogamo: inizia il Festival di Sanremo. I Castiglioni lavorano senza tregua. E’ l’anno del ‘Tubino’.

1952. Livio Castiglioni lascia i fratelli per dedicarsi al design di apparecchi audio e per l’illuminazione. Pier Giacomo e Achille continuano assieme l’attivita’ professionale. In assenza di televisione (almeno in Italia), ci si avvia ad avere una copertura nazionale con tre canali radio (1951). Nasce Radiosera. Dopo Garibaldi (e prima di Mike Bongiorno) la radio e’ una delle componenti principali della reale definizione di un Italia unita dal Brennero a Pantelleria.

1953. A Milano, inaugura il Palazzo della Permanente (con annessa torre). Il progetto e’ di Achille e di Pier Giacomo Castiglioni in collaborazione con l’ingegner Fratino. In quell’anno, il tasso di crescita dell’Italia e’ al 7.5%.

1955. La Fiat lancia la ‘Seicento’ e mette in pensione la ‘Topolino’ (in totale, dal 1936 al 1955 verranno prodotte piu’ di 500.000 esemplari di quel modello. L’Italia si motorizza a quattro ruote: questo e’ anche l’anno in cui inizia il piano decennale di costruziona autostradali. L’anno precedente sono iniziate le prime trasmissioni televisive della RAI. Questo e’ l’anno di ‘Lascia o Raddoppia’. A Milano si contano 31,4 apparecchi telefonici ogni 100 abitanti (terza citta’ in Europa). Nel contempo i Castiglioni disegnano il ‘Luminator’. Achille vince il suo primo Compasso d’Oro. Ne vincera’ altri otto.

1956. Achille e’ tra i soci fondatori dell’ADI (Associazione del Design Industriale).

1957. E’ l’anno della Medaglia d’oro all’XI Triennale (e’ la prima, altre arriveranno nelle successive edizioni). E’ anche l’anno della celeberrima mostra a Villa Olmo. Per questa mostra vengono prototipati il ‘Mezzadro’ e il ‘Sella’. Per ora non sono ancora in produzione industriale, ma dopo questo allestimento il design italiano non sara’ piu’ lo stesso.

1960. Il governo Tambroni trascina l’Italia in una stagione di scontri e duri conflitti. E’ pero’ anche l’anno in cui ci sono le Olimpiadi a Roma. In termini di biografia di Castiglioni, e’ l’anno in cui esce la poltrona ‘Sanluca’ per Gavina.

1961. E’ l’anno della Birreria Splugen Brau a Milano (nonche’ della prima giunta di centro-sinistra del capoluogo lombardo). Progetto dell’arredo di interni, degli spillatori nonche’ di tutti gli arredi fissi e mobili. Vassoi, bicchieri, apribottiglie. Gli impianti tecnici vengono lasciati in vista trasformando completamente lo spazio. Piano, Rogers e il Beauburg sono di la’ da venire…
E’ anche l’anno in cui l’Italia entra a fare parte del gruppo dei gli otto paesi piu’ industrializzati del mondo. Tra il 1950 e il 1963 il reddito pro-capite degli italiani raddoppia. Numero di italiani: poco piu’ di 50 milioni. Nelle cui case iniziano a comparire televisori, frigoriferi, lavatrici in grande quantita’.

1962. I gioielli castiglioneschi si moltiplicano. Entra in produzione per Flos la lampada ‘Arco’. Per la Kraft viene disegnato il ‘cucchiaio piatto per maionese’. L’Italia e’ in pieno boom. L’anno precedente hanno iniziato le trasmissioni del Secondo Canale televisivo della Rai (nonche’ di ‘Campanile Sera’).
In Italia ci sono 8.5 apparecchi telefonici ogni 100 abitanti. Al pari della televisione e degli elettrodomestici, il telefono sta entrando nella vita degli italiani.
Gli appassionati di design sanno anche che quello e’ l’anno in cui entra in produzione la lampada ‘Tojo’.

1963. Il MoMA di New York acquista due opere dei Castiglioni: si tratta delle lampade in cocoon ‘Taraxacum’ e ‘Viscontea’. (al 2005 si registrano quattordici lavori nelle varie collezioni). Altre opere di Achille sono presenti al Victoria & Albert Museum di Londra, Vitra Design Museum di Weil am Rhein, e innumerevoli altri musei.

1965. A Londra i Rolling Stones fanno uscire ‘(I can’t get no) Satisfaction’. A Milano l’Achille presenta il ‘RR 126’ per Brionvega. Due capolavori. Umberto Eco ci spiega perche’ non esiste distinzione tra ‘bassa’ e ‘alta’ cultura.

1966. Con tre anni di anticipo su Armstrong e Aldrin i Castiglioni fanno uscire la sedia: ‘Allunaggio’. Per capirsi e’ lo stesso anno di ‘Revolver’ dei Beatles. Il mondo sta trasformandosi in maniera vertiginosa. Il contributo italiano (in termini di disegno industriale) non teme rivali.

1968. Muore Pier Giacomo Castiglioni. L’Europa sembra prossima alla rivoluzione studentesca e operaia. La rivoluzione in termini di ‘ambiente domestico’ viene supportata con l’interrutttore ‘VLM’ (uno degli ultimi progetti in cui collaborano Achille e Pier Giacomo). Con ‘Chiamate Roma 3131’ nasce il primo programma radiofonico nel quale i radioascoltatori possono chiamare la trasmissione in diretta. Gli italiani sono adesso 53 milioni.

1969. Achille inizia la carriera accademica conseguendo la libera docenza. Anche se solo di un anno, per lui, niente sessantotto. Fino al 1977 insegnera la cosiddetta: “Progettazione artistica per l’industria” presso il Politecnico di Torino (stessa facolta’ dove insegna Carlo Mollino, un altro dei grandi maestri del design italiano). Successivamente sara’ professore di “Architettura degli interni”.

1970. Grande fumatore da sempre, regala ai suoi compagni di vizio il celebre posacenere ‘Spirale’. E’ l’anno in cui I Beatles si sciolgono e l’Italia perde 4 a 1 la finale della Coppa Rimet (contro il Brasile di Garrincha e Pele’). Ci si consola con la lampada ‘Parentesi’. In Italia continua la lunga stagione di conflitto sociale. In televisione inizia il ‘Rischiatutto’.

1972. In Italia, iniziano le trasmissioni sperimentali della televisione a colori, due anni dopo il 59.2% degli italiani vota per il divorzio.

1976. Vengono installate le prime cabine telefoniche pubbliche a scheda. Bisognera’ aspettare ancora quattro anni per poter usare i telefoni pubblici utilizzando anche le monete (prima di allora si potevano usare solo i gettoni).

1978. Gli italiani sono ora 56 miloni.

1980. Iniziano gli anni ’80. I pareri sono discordi (non sulle produzioni di Castiglioni, quanto piuttosto sulle mutazioni sociali, economiche, comportamentali avvenute nel nostro paese). Da Milano parte la traiettoria di Bettino Craxi. A Torino c’e’ la marcia dei 40.000. Le relazioni tra industria, sindacato e lavoratori non saranno piu’ le stesse. I designer della Fiat stanno lavorando su quella che sara’ la Uno (che uscira’ nel 1983). Per ora, in Italia ci si sposta pero’ in 127.
Venendo a Castiglioni, il decennio inizia con la cessione dell’archivio dello studio tenuto con il fratello Pier Giacomo al Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione dell’Università di Parma.

1981. Achille Castiglioni inizia a insegnare al Politecnico di Milano. La sua cattedra e’ quella di: “Arredamento degli interni per l´indirizzo di disegno industriale e arredamento”. Insegnera’ fino al 1993.

1984. Non si verifica alcuna profezia orwelliana (almeno in apparenza). Si inaugura presso il Museum für Angewandte Kunst di Vienna la grande mostra personale itinerante su/di Achille Castiglioni. Tappe successive la Hochschule für Bildende Kunste di Berlino, Triennale di Milano, Kunstgewerbe Museum di Zurigo, Gemeentemuseum de L’Aia, il Centre Georges Pompidou (Beaubourg) di Parigi e altre innumerevoli tappe (troppe per essere menzionate tutte).

1985. In Italia abbiamo 30.4 abbonati al telefono ogni 100 abitanti. La stragrande maggioranza delle famiglie italiane ha finalmente il telefono in casa.

1987. Laurea Honoris Causa dal Royal College of Art di Londra. Achille Castiglioni continua a lavorare per le piu’ importanti aziende italiane. Come per i quarant’anni precedenti (e per il decennio successivo) si possono citare nomi di prestigio quali: Alessi, Brionvega, B&B Italia, Bonacina, Danese, Driade, Flos, Cassina, Ideal Standard, Lancia Auto, Marcatre’, Moroso, Olivelli, Omsa, Phonola, Poggi, Phoebus Alter, San Giorgio, Knoll International, Kartell, Zanotta (l’elenco esteso e’ molto piu’ lungo).

1989. L’ADI (un po’ stufa di questo Castiglioni che fa sempre man bassa di ogni tipo di premi), gli conferisce un ultimo Compasso d’Oro, alla carriera. Da qui in poi, largo ai giovani.

1990. Vengono introdotti in Italia i primi telefoni cellulari.

1995. Castiglioni vince il premio: ‘Primavera del Design’ del Museo Santa Monica di Barcellona. In occasione del premio si organizza una mostra che da Barcellona diventa itinerante.

1996. Tim lancia la prima carta telefonica prepagata e ricaricabile per la rete GSM. E’ anche l’anno in cui si possono iniziare a inviare i primi SMS da telefonino a telefonino. Sara’ una rivoluzione epocale, ma all’inizio non se ne accorge nessuno.

1997. La mostra di Barcellona parte per il suo giro del mondo. Le tappe piu’ importanti sono quella al Vitra Design Museum di Weil am Rhein,il MoMA di New York, Tokyo, e innumerevoli altre.

2000. Alla fine dell’anno TIN.IT supera i due milioni di abbonati.

2001. Anche il Politecnico di Milano (dopo innumerevoli altre istituzioni accademiche di tutto il mondo) gli conferisce una laurea honoris causa. Ovviamente si tratta di una laurea in Disegno Industriale.

2002. Muore a Milano, il 2 dicembre.

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Image on top: Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, Mezzadro stool, 1957 (in production since 1971, Zanotta).

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01. Thu 11/09/2008: Introduction. Everything is manipulation sometimes this is good (part 1)

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02. Mon 15/09/2008: Introduction. Everything is manipulation sometimes this is good (part 2)

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03. Thu 18/09/2008: Japan: Form follows fiction (the walkman and the zen garden).

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04. Mon 22/09/2008: Tokyo or the city as a mirror. Tengu and other stories.

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05. Thu 25/09/2008: Tokyo or new business models for design world. Elephant design.

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06. Mon 29/09/2008: Tokyo voids

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07. Mon 6/10/2008: How to get from 0.2% (economic growth rate) to 282.739.130.435 euro (money stuck in non-performing loans): useful data on current Japan

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08. Thu 9/10/2008: Geodesign, the people of a city

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09. Mon 13/10/2008: Geodesign, a visual diary

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10. Thu 16/10/2008: A “how-to” guide (or: the cultural event in the age of technical reproducibility)

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11. Mon 20/10/2008: Multiverse, Torino and design

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12. Thu 23/10/2008: Achille Castiglioni universe.

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13. Thu 23/10/2008: Milano and the “fuori-salone”.

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14. Mon 10/11/2008: I always did a lot of architecture. Working with ceramic, making jewels: Ettore Sottsass / City of Water

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12. Thu 23/10/2008: Bangkok story n. 1: my life with my tuk-tuk

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13. Thu 23/10/2008: Bangkok story n. 2: design and NGO.

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14. Mon 10/11/2008: Mumbay and the dabbawalla.

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15. Thu 13/11/2008: Los Angeles and the design version of California dreaming. From Charles Eeames to Ideo (part 1).

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16. Mon 17/11/2008: Los Angeles and the design version of California dreaming. From Charles Eeames to Ideo (part 2).

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17. Thu 20/11/2008: Realdoll and the design of fear. Play, rewind, stop.

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18. Mon 24/11/2008: East Coast. If I listen I forget, if I see I remember, if I have the MIT laptop…

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19. Thu 27/11/2008: London calling: Cedric Price, Critical Design and the Utility Pets (part 1)

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20. Mon 1/12/2008: London calling: Cedric Price, Critical Design and the Utility Pets (part 2)

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21. Thu 4/12/2008: Amsterdam and Doors of perceptions. Dutch!

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22. Thu 11/12/2008: On “dutchness” (part 2).

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23. Mon 15/12/2008: Ivrea and Interaction Design Institute: Tecnophilia / Tecnophobia (part 1)

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24. Thu 18/12/2008: Ivrea and Interaction Design Institute: Tecnophilia / Tecnophobia (part 2)

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Image on top: Enzo Mari, Formosa wall calendar, Danese, Milan, 1967