Francesco Trabucco & Marcello Vecchi
Blitz, like a rapid, exhaustive sequence. Cutting and bending sheet metal explicitly states and justifies the function represented, fixture, light source, graphic image, black cable supplying the source. Blitz is even more design in the concept that informs the simple lines of the whole: “I’ve learned over time to waste as little as possible, not just pieces of sheet metal, but also ideas, thoughts …”. In this sense, Francesco Trabucco, while attending his 5th year of architecture school, took an interest in steel manufacturing along with his friend Marcello Vecchi who was nearing completion of his engineering degree. He had already proven, in 1969 with Blitz, advocate of a poetic of ways aimed at research, the study of the possible, the opportune, the feasible in every area of creative interest. Beginning his career as an Architect and Designer after graduation, Trabucco won numerous architectural competitions and international Design Awards, including, the Compasso d’Oro, the Gute Form, the Bio.
His projects are part of the permanent collections of the MOMA in New York, the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. For two editions of the Milan Triennale, the Italian section was under his direction. Permanent member of Design Jury, consisting of ADI (Industrial Design Association), Confindustria and the Chamber of Commerce of Milan, author of multiple publications, books and scientific articles. Francesco Trabucco is now Professor Emeritus of Industrial Design at the Milan Polytechnic Institute where he coordinates the PhD in Design Research and directed the Master in Design Engineering&Innovation and Design for Architecture.
“When in 1976, Marco Zanuso, called upon to occupy the Chair of Artistic Design for Industry at the School of Architecture of the Milan Polytechnic, offered me to assist him in teaching, I accepted with enthusiasm…
Having had the privilege of working with him for many years, inheriting the Chair I felt all the responsibility and commitment… Marco Zanuso, besides being one of the most extraordinary Designers and Architects of the post-war period, was a great professor…”. Here then is the principal teaching of the Master. Trabucco makes the example of the sense of making, of rigour, of perseverance, of understanding Design as the ethic of the project where in the words of Zanuso: “The design becomes an essential moment in virtue of which individual and society can recognise themselves in the question, the production and the use of objects that respond to shared behaviours and rituals”. In Blitz, in that first sample by Trabucco, it is undoubtedly the object that responds to shared behaviours and rituals. Codiceicona reissued Blitz in 2018, re-proposing the appeal of timeless design.
Decio G.R.Carugati
