Achille Castiglioni

Achille Castiglioni was born in 1918 in Milan and studied architecture at the Politechnico di Milano in 1944. From 1940 he experimented with industrial products together with his brothers Livio and Piero Giacomo. After graduating, he began research activities in the field of new forms, techniques and materials, aiming to implement a comprehensive design process. In 1969 he began to pass on his skills to students, and until 1980 he held a chair at the Faculty of Architecture in Turin and then worked in Milan as a professor of industrial design until 1993.

He carried out experiments and research in the realization of installations for exhibitions such as Triennale di Milano, Montecatini, Agip and Rai. Fourteen of his works are on display at MoMA in New York, and other works are represented at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Kunstgewerbe Museum in Zurich, the Staatliches Museum fur Angewandte Kunst in Munich, and the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague. He has received a total of nine Compasso d'Oro awards for various products and works of art, and has had many solo exhibitions, including at the Museum fur Angewandte Kunst in Vienna, the Akademie der Kunst in Berlin and the Triennale in Milan. His work is represented, for example, by the SANCARLO chair and the BABELA chair he designed for Tacchini.