Stefano Giovannoni

Stefano Giovannoni (born 1954) is an Italian architect and designer. He was one of the founders of the Bolidist movement. Giovannoni lives and works in Milan.

Biography

Stefano Giovannoni was born in La Spezia in 1954. He studied architecture at the University of Florence, graduating in 1978. He continued his association with the university doing research and teaching until 1991. He has also taught at the Domus Academy in Milan, the University of Reggio Emilia, and at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Genoa, where he was the chair of industrial design department.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s he collaborated with Ettore Sottsass and Alessandro Mendini at Studio Alchimia in Milan. He was also one of the co-founders of the . In the mid-1980s, he and founded a studio and designed products for companies such as Alessi, calling themselves King-Kong Productions.

Geovannoni has designed furniture, housewares, decorative objects, sanitary fittings, electronic devices, lighting, and interiors for companies such as , Fiat, , Laufen, Lavazza, , Siemens, 3M, Toto, NTT Docomo.

Objects designed by Geovannoni are in collections such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Brooklyn Museum in New York, the Design Museum and the Museum of Design in Plastics (MoDiP) in the UK, and the Design Museum in Brussels.

Their collaborations with international designers such as Philippe Starck, Studio Job, Marcantonio, and the multidisciplinary artist Marco Oggian stand out, resulting in a series of products characterized by visual boldness and originality.

His for Magis was one of the most commercially successful design products of the early 2000s, and according to the designer, as of 2015 it was "the most copied design product in the world" with over 1,000 Chinese companies making unauthorised replicas. The company manufactures furniture designed by Giovannoni and other well known designers such as Andrea Branzi, Estudio Campana, Studio Job, Alessandro Mendini, Satyendra Pakhale, Kris Ruhs, Philippe Starck, Marcel Wanders, and Nika Zupanc.

Giovannoni was awarded the 2020 .

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