Collection: Aldo Cibic
Aldo Cibic was born in Schio in the province of Vicenza in 1955. Self-taught, he entered the world of architecture and design in 1980. His career began when he met Ettore Sottsass, who welcomed him into his Milan studio. There, he had the opportunity to work alongside designers Matteo Thun, Marco Marabelli and Marco Zanini, with whom he founded the Memphis group a year later. The Sottsass experience marked a watershed in the history of design, and Cibic participated by adhering to an experimental approach that has remained one of the constant characteristics of his work. However, the young designer soon moved towards a more social dimension of architecture and industrial design, placing people rather than objects at the heart of his thinking. In 1989, he ended his collaboration with Sottsass to found Cibic & Partners, together with manager Antonella Spiezio, as well as Luigi Marchetti and Chuck Felton.
His approach based on experimentation and innovation materialised in the Cibic Workshop, a laboratory involving young designers to assist him in reflecting upon the relationships between individuals and the complex network of relationships that surrounds them, and on the role of design in this context. Starting in 1991, the laboratory sponsored several initiatives. For example, the self-produced collection, Standard, was presented to the public in a temporary exhibition, among the first of its kind. This was followed, over the years, by research, exhibitions and installations including Family Business (1995) New Stories New Design (2002), Citizen City (2003), Microrealities (2004), Rethinking happiness (2010), Elephountain (2013), Elevated Neighborhood (2018) and (In)complete (2018). He was the artistic director of the 2006 Biennale di Architettura in Venice. In parallel to his work in architectural and interior design in Italy and abroad, he undertook teaching activity at the Politecnico di Milano, Domus Academy, IUAV University in Venice. He is also an honorary professor at Tongji University in Shanghai.
His activity as a product designer with the Memphis group initiated with the Atlas coffee table (1982), the Madison floor lamp (1983), the Sophia desk (1985), and many other objects, now design icons. This was followed by collaborations with such prestigious brands as Paola C, for which he designed the ceramic Kubetto lamp (1989); Foscarini, with the Cocò (2000) and Lampoon lamps (2002); Artemide with the Kill lamp (2002). He designed the Otto sofa for Pianca (2008); the Riviera tubular metal collection including tables, chairs and potholders for De Castelli (2010); the Mio, Bio and Trio satin brass lamps for Ghidini1961 (2017); and a collection of blown glass lamps for Venini. More recent works include wood panelling for Inkiostro Bianco (2018), the Pont table for Selva (2019), and the prototypes for the Donut stool (2019) and the Target table, the latter presented at Design Shangai 2021. Aldo Cibic's creations are exhibited in world-renowned collections among which the Triennale in Milan, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal.
