Gastone Rinaldi
designer alla Rima
Rummaging through the personal archive of a design master: Gastone Rinaldi’s story in his own words? Not exactly. What emerges instead is the personality of a designer who was deeply human, generous and unpretentious. This is how it was told by everyone who knew him in the field: designers, architects and ex-collaborators. His personality was also considered harmonious and plain, like what radiates from his best designs, whether well-known or not.
If we venture into the pages of his archive with the intention of gleaning an idea about his personality, we begin by verifying two aspects: what is there? what isn’t there? So it is Gastone himself who talks to us through his choices about the company archive’s materials: letters, patents, dialogues about design perspectives with friends and already-prominent personalities who were admired as masters. We do not find a self-celebratory Gastone
in this, either. We realize that it was not documents saved so that “posterity” could use to form ideas about how valuable his intuitions were. It was rather the accounts of personal relationships that made him, step by step, aware of the fact that he was part of the ideal community of Design.
Gastone Rinaldi designer alla Rima began from the interpretation about “what is present and what is missing” in the documents that he chose for himself, and the comparison, or almost validation, carried out through all the people who knew him and clearly remember him.
320 pages, 220 color photographs, size 21x24 cm, softcover. With the support of Letizia Carli Rinaldi that gave access to the archive Gastone Rinaldi.
ISBN: 978-88-941164-0-3
Printed by Grafiche Antiga (TV)
Editor: Capitolium Art
english translation included in the book
The book
Opened by a foreword by Michele De Lucchi and an introduction by Marco Romanelli. With original documents from the Gastone Rinaldi Archive.
Divided in sections:
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1. Rima: between story and history
The first section focuses on the production situation to which Gastone Rinaldi brought his contribution: Rima, an artisan company that experienced a constant development till becoming a full-fledged industry.
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2. Gastone Rinaldi's design
An attempt to identify the fundamental characteristics of the designer's work, based on observation of some Rima products. The activity of Gastone Rinaldi as designer is presented through patents, interviews and testimonies from former workers.
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3. Collaborations
Gio Ponti, Marco Zanuso, Alberto Rosselli, Campo e Graffi, Giancarlo Pozzi, Eugenio Gerli, Michele De Lucchi. These are some of the outside professionals who established relationships with Rima and collaborated with Gastone Rinaldi.
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4. Architecture
In this section, architect Enrico Santangelo tells about Gastone Rinaldi's change in scale from interior design to architecture in creating a house tailored for himself and his family.
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5. Register
54 pages in which over 300 models (chairs, cinema seats, tables, bookcases, beds, lighting, school furniture) are showcased, designed between 1948 and 1974.
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6. Documents
Unpublished documents from the Gastone Rinaldi Archive: patents, sketches and pictures, as well as correspondence between the designer and some leading names in industrial design. (This section: texts in original only).
The authors
Giuseppe Drago
Giuseppe Drago has collected a number of Rima designs over the years. After finishing his studies in Humanities, he began working in antique furniture restoration, later on specializing in twentieth century furniture. In the last years he also created pieces on his own design. He lives and works in Padova.
Jacopo Drago
Jacopo Drago, as a design student at the Bozen University, after study tours at the Istanbul Bilgi University and Kyoto University of Art and Design, in 2014 he graduated in industrial design. The graduation thesis, by the title ‘The Rima stories’, included an exhibition featuring selected products by the Padova company. He lives and works in Padova.
Enrico Santangelo
Enrico Santangelo is an architect in Padova. As an independent professional he works in contract and residential architecture. In 2008 he took part in the creation of the handbook ‘Sports installations typologies’, in collaboration with the Veneto Region and CONI. In 2009 he curated the exhibition ‘Tribute to Carlo Scarpa designer’, sponsored by Provincia di Padova, Comune di Limena and Comune di Altivole.