Desk clock "Cronotime" - design Pio Manzù (1966)
The return of these table and wall clocks in our collection makes me very happy. We have finally decided to pur back into production two small masterpieces of '60s' and '70s' design ("Cronotime" Pio Manzù, 1966 and "Optic" Joe Colombo in 1970) and one of the first projects by Philippe Starck for Alessi ("Walter Wayle II", 1990). Objects that might not be for everyone, of course, but are axquisite examples of how the quantity is not necessarily synonymous with qyuality..... (Alberto Alessi)
PIO MANZU'
Born in Milan in 1939, son of the great italian sculptor Giacomo Manzù.
After achieving the classical maturity in 1959, he begins his studies in industrial design at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm (Germany), and later he starts to collaborate with FIAT.
At the same time he keeps on learning as assistant at the school in Ulm, and begins to collaborate with specialized magazine (such as «Form», «Style Auto», «4Roads», «Marcatré», and newspapers («Il Corriere della Sera»).
In 1964 he plans, after his thesis concerning «Design of a tractor of 80 cv», a Gran Turismo car for NSU Werke and, the following year, the family car Glas Autonova.
Besides the car design - of which the most famous example are the first version of Fiat 127 and the prototype of the City Taxi - Pio Manzù has realized many objects for big firms such as the Parentesi light for Flos, together with Achille Castiglioni; the Cronotime for Ritz Italora (later produced by Alessi) and the Desk tidy for Kartell.
To the designer, who died in an auto accident when he was just 30, has been dedicated The Pio Manzù International Research Centre in Verrucchio (Rimini), to whose planning he had collaborated.
Not only designer, Pio Manzù has used photography as tool of research and study. www.galleriamanzoni.com