Michele De Lucchi

Michele De Lucchi started studying architecture at Padua University, switching to Florence University, where he took his diploma in 1975. For two years afterwards he taught architecture there as an academic assistant. In 1973 Michele De Lucchi joined forces with other designers and architects to form Cavart, a radical design group. In 1978 Michele De Lucchi went to Milan to work for Kartell as a designer at Centrokappa, the proprietary Kartell design studio. After meeting the designer Ettore Sottsass, Michele De Lucchi joined the Studio Alchimia designers. For Studio Alchimia exhibitions, Michele De Lucchi came up with several bizarre and comical designer objects, including the 1978 "Sinerpica" table lamp, which was virtually useless as a lamp, as was "Sinvola" (1979), which looks like an outsize pincushion with a rod bearing a light bulb stuck through the middle. In 1979 Michele De Lucchi also designed several prototype household appliances, which were shown at the Milan Triennale but never produced.

From 1980 Michele De Lucchi belonged to Memphis, the designer group around Ettore Sottsass. In 1982 Michele De Lucchi designed "Lido", a colorful sofa, and, in 1983, the "First" chair for Memphis. In the late 1980s, Michele De Lucchi again returned to good design, landing a bestseller in "Tolomeo", a clearcut, functional aluminium work lamp he co-designed with Giancarlo Fassina for Artemide in 1987. In 1990 Michele De Lucchi found a small business of his own for making lighting that was neither complex nor had to take into consideration the demands of mass production so it could be produced by craftsmen working in the traditional manner. The Michele De Lucchi milky white lamps "Fata" and "Fatina" of handblown Murano glass date from 2001. On the side, however, Michele De Lucchi continued to work with his design studio for large companies. Since 1979 he had been a design consultant for Olivetti. In 1993 Michele De Lucchi designed branches of Deutsche Bank, in 1995 a shop system for Mandarina Duck, and, in 1997, the Deutsche Bahn travel center in Frankfurt.