«Inspiration takes shape where ideas meet suggestions» – the projects and the collections signed by Paolo Castelli are a precious meeting space between the innovation and the ancestral dream of living, alchemy between ethical choice and creative force.
Inspiration Collection – Ipanema Sofa, My Lamp e My Lamp floor
Every collection, entirely made in Italy with the collaboration with great master craftsmen, intones an ode between luxury design and a new ethics of sustainability.
Soft – Ratio sofa, luminous library Uffizio Bookcase e Icone Luminose Table Lamp
The art of knowing how to do
Plia, the best folding chair of the Twentieth century
The Castelli’s experience starts in 1887, when Ettore Castelli gives life to his Bolognese cabinetmaking, future leading artisan company in the Made in Italy sector. The art of knowing how to do and the special attention to a tradition that doesn’t overshadow the innovation marked much of success of the Seventies, when the production of Plia marked the iconic transition to the industrial structure of Anonima Castelli. In the Nineties Paolo Castelli, Ettore’s great-grandson, acquires Domodinamica, opening a path full of new challenges and projects of both a private and public nature, in Italy and abroad, until the opening, in 2017, of the first showroom in Shanghai. In 2019 the company obtains the FSC® (Forest Stewardship Council®), aimed at ensuring that the wood material used for the products made comes from forests managed in compliance with environmental, social and economic standards.
Inspiration Collection – Claude coffee table and My Lamp
Paolo Castelli S.p.A. is active in Milan, London and Paris, having created and developed, over time, great and promising initiatives such as the exhibition of Palazzo Italia for the Expo 2015 in just 54 days.
For an aesthetic of elegant essentiality
Inspiration Collection – overview
[…] the culture and ethos of an articulated and complex research, a journey into the innovation of hospitality and the dream of living […] The desire to go further, to be led by the imagination and then channel everything into something concrete and tangible.
Keep playing while growing up.
Mars Table and suspension lamp Allure
Paolo Castelli’s projects are a combination of art and interior design; the graceful shapes of the luminous devices meet the sinuous and always refined lines of seats, tables and console ending up becoming iconic and original sculptures.
This is the case of the eclectic Ottomana: an innovative seat from the Inspiration Collection. Made of ESP (sintered expanded polystyrene) resin-coated with metallic iridescent multicolored finish in acid-etched zinc, Ottomana is an explosion of novelties and refined studies of the functional alternatives of a common seat. Not having a backrest opens up many possibilities of use that invite individual ingenuity and creativity.
Ottomana, whose finishing work is performed with the direct casting of 1mm of pure metal
The same collection includes Leaf and Mars; tables with round support and generous dimensions, in which of the materials and every other detail shine in the evocative charge of the names, as well as in refined beauty. Mars, with its precious black glossy lacquer that incorporates gold dust, opens up to astral and galactic references.
Explosion of light – Detail view of Mars table and Allure lamp
Ipanema: expressiveness with a French taste
Ipanema Sofa
Ipanema is the living collection created by the architect and designer Thierry Lemaire for the Paolo Castelli Inspiration line. The collection includes sofas, armchairs and coffee tables echoing French furniture. The Ipanema Coffee Table are offered in three precious qualities of marble, with a metal supporting structure and a matt black nickel finish.
Ipanema Coffee table
As regards the design of the tables and support bases, the mastery of knowing how to make each functional element part of a real sculptural process is surprising: the modular union of two or more products is realized in the implementation of a completely new, creative and always surprising form. In this regard, we should mention the Ellipse Rotondo, and the brand-new Ellipse Coffee Table up to, among other copious examples, the Flare Separè Paravento.
Ipanema Sofa, Coffee table Ipanema e My Lamp Floor
Artistic features
Among the emotionally most characteristic aspects of Paolo Castelli’s creation there is a widespread reference to the great masters of the art world; just think to the very original Claude Coffee Table, echoing in composition the delicate and sinuous shapes of the water lilies, celebrated by the great French artist in his famous painting. The metal bases with a shiny gold finish support the botanic green marble slabs which, thanks to a careful study of shape and light, as well as through a shrew smoothing of geometries, they condense into an illusory dynamism of matter and form.
Claude coffee table
In this regard, the project undertaken in 2020 in collaboration with the Bologna Museum Institution for the creation of Oggetti d’autore capsule deserves great attention, as a tribute to the artist Giorgio Morandi.
Morandi collection – Icone Silenziose
Morandi Collection: when design meets art
A creative partnership, the one between the Emilian designer and entrepreneur, Paolo Castelli, and the Bologna Museum Institution, started “silently” in 2009, during the refurbishment of Casa Morandi, the artist’s home in via Fondazza 36, where Morandi lived with his mother and sister from 1910 to 1964.
The Morandi collection unfolds in a series of designer objects and furnishing accessories inspired by the art of the great Bolognese master. Each creation is characterized by a strong identity value where shape and color recall the craftsmanship «combining ethics and aesthetics».
Testa fermalibri – tribute to Morandi
The designs include the innovative as well as characteristic Icone silenziose, which seems to “donate” material and allow a large part of the components of Giorgio Morandi’s still life to touch. Made of fine Murano’s blow glass, they once again celebrate the Italian craftsmen.
The Icone silenziose are echoed by a series of decorative designer bowls, where the Vietri ceramic material combined with a clearly hand-made decoration, sensibly recalls one of the possible palettes handled by the great artist.
Morandi collection – Icone Silenziose and ciotola d’autore
Testa, from the height of his formal essentiality, stands as an original bookend in solid wood, brushed in a walnut-stained finish.
«A lyrical and poetic accent» moves the soul of each of these creations.
GreenKiss line – Vao sofa 380
GreenKiss for a responsible present
Among the most commendable and courageous initiatives undertaken by Paolo Castelli S.p.A. there is the exemplary and stimulating choice to direct the creation of valuable objects towards a search for sustainable and strongly green materials. This is how GreenKiss, the ethical collection of eco-responsible products, was born:
Three colleagues. A sincere exchange, based on esteem and friendship. The will to take new paths and find innovative solutions for an eco-sustainable luxury design.
Research, regenerated materials and an ethical supply chain are our answer.
Linea GreenKiss – Vao sofa 250
The line, created in collaboration with the designers Hubert de Malherbe and Thierry Lemaire, consists in tables, chairs and lighting fixtures, to which the design of outdoor components has recently been added.
The quality of regenerated materials, recovered or the results of an ethical and controlled supply chain (second choice or fast-growing wood, glass, stone, recycled fabrics and concrete, natural fibers, sustainable ceramics) is enhanced by the geometrical lines, graphic details and asymmetrical proportions, according to an ironic, creative, question and answer between art and interior design.
We thank Paolo Castelli S.p.A. for granting the use of the photographic repertoire contained therein. For a much wider overview and always in continuous creative and design evolution, we recommended to visit the website www.paolocastelli.com