Catellani creates the lamps inside his atelier, while Smith paws the ground of his stable. It has been this way since 1989. Thirty years later, Catellani felt he would always enjoy an encounter with a real Smith. Developing an understanding with a personality so strong that it has characterised the entire production of Catellani & Smith was a difficult feat, however.
Thus, the doors to the mind and the company have opened up to new Smiths. People that design new products in tune with the founder’s clear vision. Young and no longer young, as long as they are enlightened and enlightening.
Giulia Archimede was born in Fiesole (Florence) in 1990 with the great dream of devoting her life to equestrianism. A dream that, due to a personal event, came to an abrupt halt when she was 17 years old, leaving much bitterness but an unshakable fondness for that lost future.
The heartaches of life led her towards a new path inspired by the artisan work of her father, and she developed a love of form and matter. Giulia then devoted her time to studying interior and product design, concluding her studies with a dissertation on travel as an encounter – of course – between form and matter. Travel and exploring became a reason for Giulia to discover and find herself, in places ranging from South Africa to Finland. After a year in Helsinki at Alvar Aalto’s Wood Program, she returned to concentrate on design and the construction of wooden furniture in a carpentry workshop in Milan, drawing on the experience acquired in Finland. Curiosity and experience led her to begin working with a new material, which soon became the protagonist of all her work: Light, which gave shape to an emotion that takes the name of Alchimie.
In 1989, just a year before Giulia Archimede’s birth, Enzo Catellani founded Catellani & Smith, ironically choosing as his symbolic ‘partner’, Smith, his English thoroughbred horse. After thirty years and a fortunate series of events, Enzo Catellani met Giulia Archimede, who introduced him to that powerful ‘emotion’ called Alchemie.
Their creative understanding was immediately evident…
Today Giulia is part of Enzo Catellani’s new ‘stable’, a project for talented ‘new Smiths’, searching for a new, bright future together.
By chance or fate, it all began with horses…
Discover > Alchemie T
