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Stefano Giovannoni’s work dives into our collective subconscious, evoking an emotional response. Defined by forms that speak to us as humans, the designer’s objects are simultaneously highly innovative, based on groundbreaking ideas that come to life in strong forms with a clear concept. Giovannoni is the designer of ILBAGNOALESSI, an iconic bathroom collection first designed over 20 years ago that demonstrates pioneering design is always in vogue.
Stefano Giovannoni is an architect and industrial designer born in 1954 in La Spezia, Italy. He graduated from the University of Architecture in Florence, the same faculty where he taught and conducted research until 1991. Giovannoni was one of the co-founders of Bolidism, a cultural movement that emerged in the 1980s in Florence that considers an object first as a means of communicating expressive content and that only later comes into a material form via a careful and deliberate act. Giovannoni now lives and works in Studio Giovannoni, a converted 1930s hydro-turbine factory in the centre of Milan.
Giovannoni has ventured into a variety of fields, ranging from furniture, houseware, decorative objects, electronic devices, lighting and sanitaryware. His work is defined by its expressive and playful quality, with objects evoking recognisable shapes and often provoking an emotional response. Blurring the lines between design and objet d’art, Giovannoni’s pieces are not purely utilitarian items, often having a sculptural nature. His work is widely appreciated, bringing design out of elite contexts and into everyday life.
Many of Giovannoni’s pieces have become best sellers, most notably the Girotondo and Mami series for Alessi, the Bombo stool for Magis and ILBAGNOALESSI for LAUFEN. He has collaborated with many other important brands, including Flos, Helit, Inda, Lavazza, Nestlé, Nissan, Oras, Replay, Samsung, Seiko, Siemens, 3M and more.
Objects by Giovannoni are part of the permanent collections in the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Design in Plastics in the UK, and the Design Museum in Brussels.
Over the decades, his work has consistently been recognised by multiple important awards, namely the Design Plus Award, the 100% Design Award, the Good Design Award in Chicago, Interior Design magazine's Best of Year 2012 Award and Wallpaper magazine’s Design Awards 2013, among others.
Giovannoni designed the award-winning ILBAGNOALESSI collection for LAUFEN in 2002. Inscribed in the history of bathroom design for its organic, almost sculptural shapes and emblematic eccentricity, the collection’s lasting relevance has led to its evolution over the years. The renewals of this classic collection have been shaped by advances in materials, the introduction of new technologies and changing bathroom requirements, while preserving its capacity to touch users on a deeper level.
ILBAGNOALESSI’s enduring appeal lies in its ability to be fashionable yet without following any particular trend. The primal forms of iconic products like the drop-shaped toilet and the floor-standing washbasin transmit a message of purity and expressiveness that speak to our subconscious mind.
The image of white stones being lapped by water was the starting point of the aesthetics of ILBAGNOALESSI. Shapes with a strong identity grew from this, leading to the creation of organic forms with a sculptural quality that appear to have been created by nature itself.
The dawn of the ultra-fine ceramic material Saphirkeramik gave Giovannoni the opportunity to reinterpret the classic archetypes of the collection with even more fluid and daring lines. The washbasins were reborn with a slimmer profile.
The new two-tone freestanding bathtub enriches the ceramic offering of the collection while an innovative frame mirror with app-controlled LED lighting, personalisable vanity units and new ceramic colours – matt white, black and coffee – further elevate the bathroom experience.
The first floor-standing washbasin and the first washbasin in which the bowl and pedestal are made of a single ceramic piece. TAM TAM’s soft, round shapes act as the keystone to the collection’s organic design language.
The foundation of the successful partnership between LAUFEN and Stefano Giovannoni is a shared thirst for innovation. The first iteration of ILBAGNOALESSI led to the creation of radically new shapes with an expressive and narrative quality that marked a milestone in bathroom design. The subsequent renewals of the collection have been inspired, among other technologies, by LAUFEN’s ultra-fine ceramic material, Saphirkeramik, opening the door to a slimmer design language expanding on existing codes.
