The Object of Exception Pier Luigi Ghianda

1983
© Photo Molteni & Motta

PIERLUIGI GHIANDA, ARTISAN

Pierluigi Ghianda workshop combines the very best that highly sophisticated tools and the finest of handicraft traditions can together produce. In his view, a tool is an extension of the hand and mind to be treated with the same care and respect. Indeed, his own tools are personal objects that he alone can use, rather as fountain pens are for those that love them.

Ghianda’s father was a carpenter of the old school was loath to make up the objects designed by the new generation of architects of the time because they had litle to do with the tradition he knew and recognized.

Pierluigi Ghianda, on the other hand, accepts the most sophisticated techniques in so far as they mai alleviate some manual fatigue but certainly non to make things easier. Ghianda speaks about his work and the world about him in a delightful mixture of dialect and Italian enriched with puns: his work refers to as he might to a loved one; the world about him, made up of one-time artisans who’we become industrialists and have thus lost their ties with tradition, he talks about with a nice touch of irony. In the hands of this remarkable craftsman, wood is a living material that must be worked in accordance with is own most intimate characteristics. Ghianda is averse to all paints and varnishes that inevitably conceal its true nature, that interfere with its own special splendour.

Secrétaire in walnut or suisse pearwood
Book stand in pearwood for the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo in Milan - Newspaper stand in birch wood for the australian emmbassies abroad
Box set in pear wood foe churches
Suisse pearwood tray, designed by Gae Aulenti - Etagère "Luigi" in natural beech wood designed by Gianfranco Frattini
Bath rack in cedar designed by Gae Aulenti produced for Fontana Arte
Block of cocobolo wood for manicure sets - Beauty case for shoes in cedar wood for Lorenzi
“Kioto” table in birch wood ebanized designed by Gianfranco Frattini
"Portofino" small container in pear wood natural or stained designed by Gianfranco Frattini
“Elfo” chair in birch and straw designed by Vico Magistretti for Rosenthal – Chair prototyp designed by Gianfranco Frattini
Exibithion unit for Nazareno Gabrielli in ebanized Ramin wood designed by Gianfranco Frattini
Table “Talete” designed by Pierluigi Ghianda and Gabriele Regondi in natural ash or stained for Rosenthal Studio-Ligne distribuited by Artemide.