Alberto Meda

Italian engineer and industrial designer

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honorary Royal Designer for Industry (2005)

Websitehttp://www.albertomeda.com

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Alberto Meda (born 1945) is an Italian engineer and designer. His work is held in museums around the world. He works and lives in Milan.

Early life

Meda was born in Tremezzina, in the Italian province of Como in 1945, and graduated with a laurea in mechanical engineering at the Politecnico di Milano in 1969.

Career

In 1973 he became the technical director and head of planning at Kartell,^[1] in charge of furniture and plastic laboratory equipment projects.

Design

In 1979 he worked as a freelance industrial designer for companies such as Alfa Romeo Auto, Alias, Alessi, Arabia-Finland, Cinelli, Colombo design, Brevetti Gaggia, JCDecaux, Ideal Standard, Luceplan, Legrand, Mandarina Duck, Omron Japan, Philips, Olivetti, and Vitra.

Meda came to design from engineering, bringing a pragmatic mind and an attention to details in materials and production process. His applied-science background shaped Meda’s designs that are modern in form, and organic in feel. This sophistication caught the eye of Rolf Fehlbaum, chairman of Swiss manufacturer Vitra, who commissioned the engineer to design a chair. This collaboration resulted in seating pieces such as the MedaPro and the MedaPal.^[2]

Teaching and research

From 1983 he was a lecturer on industrial technology at Domus Academy,^[1] which lasted until 1987. He conducted seminars at International Design Symposium in Fukui, at Workshop Design Quest in Osaka, and at Design Center in Tokyo. From 1995 he was a lecturer at Politecnico of Milan "Corso di Laurea di Disegno Industriale" with a design lab.

From 1995 to 1997 he was a member of Board of Designlabor Bremerhaven.

From 2003 to 2007 he lectured at IUAV in Venice with design workshops.

In 2016, he became a member of the Scientific Committee of the Fondazione Politecnico di Milano.

He gave lectures and seminars at Chicago, Washington University, in Stockholm, Miami, San Paulo, Taipei, Ulm, Istanbul, Toronto, Mexico, Hong Kong, Firenze, Oslo, Istanbul, Lausanne, and Seoul.

Recognition

Museums

Meda's designs are held in the permanent collection of museums such as the Museum of Modern Art of Toyama, the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Examples of these works include the "Light light " chair (1987), the "Soft light" chair (1989), the "Longframe" by Alias (1991), and the "On-Off" lamp by Luceplan (1988).

In 2023 the Triennale di Milano staged a retrospective in of his work titled Alberto Meda: Tension and Lightness.^[3]^[4]^[5]

Awards


Award	Year	Object	Company
Compasso d'oro	1989	Lola lamp	Luceplan
	1994	"Metropoli" lamps	Luceplan
	2008	MIX lamp	Luceplan
	2011	Teak table	Alias
	2016	Flap acoustic panel	Caimi Brevetti
	2018	Origami screen-radiator	Tubes

1990“Creativitalia” (Tokio1990) e una personale alla Design Gallery di Matzuia Ginza
1992 XVIII Triennale, ‘La leggerezza’ sezione del ‘Il Giardino delle cose’
1992 "Design Plus” Titania lamp, Luceplan
1993 “Mestieri d’autore” (Siena)
1994 "European Design Prize", Luceplan
1995 “Mutant materials in contemporary design“ al MOMA-(New York)
1995 "Industrie Forum design" Hannover UNI – X family lamps
1996 “Meda-Rizzatto” alla Galerie Binnen (Amsterdam)
1996 "Industrie Forum design" Hannover Titania Clamp lamp
1997 Good design Gold Prize–Japan Meda chair, Vitra
1998 I.D design review ’Best of category’ Meda chair, Vitra
1999 Designer of the year, personale al Salon du Meuble (Parigi)
1999 Designer of the year, Salon du Meuble de Paris
2000 Bundespreis Produktdesign, Meda chair, Vitra
2001 “Italia e Giappone: design come stile di vita” (Yokohama, kobe)
2001 Good Design Award Chicago Athenaeum Water Jug, Arabia
2002 Reddot Award knives, Iittala Finland
2005 “Hounorary Royal Designer for Industry”^[6] Londra RSA
2006 "Design Plus" e “Light of the future” MIX lamp, Luceplan
2007 "INDEX:award" Solar Bottle
2008 Design and Elastic Mind- (MOMA)
2012 Best of – Design Plus per OttoWatt, Luceplan
2014 Triennale di Milano Il Design Italiano oltre le crisi
2014 Best of Neocon (U.S.A) Silver Award Flap, Caimi Brevetti
2015 Youthful – spazio Domus, (Milano)
2015 The Bauhaus#itsalldesign. (Vitra Design Museum)
2015 German Design Award Flap, Caimi Brevetti
2016 DesignEuropa Awards (EUIPO) Flap, Caimi Brevetti
2016 Good Design Award Chicago Athenaeum Origami, Tubes
2017 Red Dot with Frame 52, Alias
2018 Red Dot Best of the Best with Aledin lamp, Kartell

References

^ ^a ^b Fiell, Charlotte; Fiell, Peter (2005). Design of the 20th Century (25th anniversary ed.). Köln: Taschen. p. 458. ISBN 9783822840788. OCLC 809539744.
^ "MedaPal by Alberto Meda for Vitra". Archived from the original on 2014-12-19. Retrieved 2014-12-19.
^ "Alberto Meda Tension and Lightness". triennale.org. Retrieved 2024-02-06.
^ Piotti, Cristina Kiran (7 October 2023). "Alberto Meda: design's master of lightness". Wallpaper* Magazine. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
^ Katsikopoulou, Myrto (24 October 2023). "alberto meda's ongoing pursuit of lightness celebrated at triennale milano exhibition". designboom | architecture & design magazine. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
^ "Current Honorary Royal Designers for Industry". The RSA. Retrieved 2022-10-03.