Pierluigi Ghianda

This book presents the work Pierluigi Ghianda, one of the leading contemporary artist craftsmen, who has been defined as “the poet of wood” on account of the love he puts into handling wood and his profound understanding of this living material, which never dies, even after hundreds of years, and because of the profound respect he shows for it.

The wonderful furniture, tiny pearwood Hermes pill boxes, Dior, Pomellato, Lorenzi and Rolex caskets, the ultralight De Padova trays, the Fontana Arte wooden bathroom sets, magnificently photographed in black-and-white by Giancarlo Pradelli, illustrate the extraordinary skill of the last great master following in the tradition of the Italian Renaissance workshops.

Through Ghianda’s own words and the remarks of the well-known architects who have worked with him, such as Aulenti, Boeri, Castiglioni, Frattini, Magistretti, Ponti, Sapper, and Sottsass, the reader comes to understand the milieu in which he trained and which gave rise to the so-called “Italian style” between the 1940s and 1990s. This world was made up of a few dozen architects and businessmen and has now all but vanished, overwhelmed by mass-production technology, the demand for cheap products, and the gradual whittling away of a generation of entrepreneurs, craftsmen, and learned patrons who have not been replaced.

A brief letter by Ettore Sottsass, Jr. describes what it was like to work with Pierluigi Ghianda.