An Intimate Conversation with Piero Lissoni

In the dynamic realm of design, Piero Lissoni is kind of a big deal. Innovative and adaptable, the architect, designer and creative director of B&B Italia is revered for his distinctive approach. He recently sat down with our Editor and Founder, Dana Tomić Hughes, in front of an intimate audience of the Australian design elite. The dialogue, reminiscent of Piero’s designs, was a beautiful tapestry of depth, wit, and introspection.

As Space Furniture marks its 30th anniversary, this conversation set against the backdrop of a week-long design celebration—which saw Piero visiting Space Furniture showrooms in Melbourne, Sydney, and Singapore—felt particularly poignant.

During their conversation, Piero’s emphasis on “listening” in the design process emerged as a poignant theme. “Every project is a new story, a new adventure,” he mused, underscoring the significance of tuning into clients’ desires. In a world where design can sometimes seem repetitive, Piero’s philosophy is invigorating.

Heritage, a subject that resonates deeply with many, naturally wove its way into their discussion. Milanese born, where history is etched into every corner, Piero’s insights were particularly enlightening. “I’m Italian, I’m surrounded by heritage every day, but I’m not a prisoner of that,” he reflected. This equilibrium of honouring the past while pioneering into the future is a challenge many designers face, and Piero’s experiences, like his Beijing project, offered a valuable perspective.

Scenes from Space’s 30th Birthday bash in Melbourne and Sydney. Photos by Kit Photography and Studio La Tessa.

The conversation was casual as Piero shared anecdotes from his student years, learning under masters such as Achille Castiglioni, Aldo Rossi and Vico Magistretti, whom he referred to as design “crocodiles”, transforming the interview into a fascinating trip down memory lane.

The conversation took a detour as they explored Piero’s personal tastes. From his penchant for both Italian and German cars to his admiration for iconic design pieces (even if they occasionally favour aesthetics over comfort), these snippets offered a glimpse into the maestro’s world.

Concluding on a light-hearted note, the duo delved into the optimal seasons to explore Milan. Piero’s portrayal of the city’s shopping district as a “beautiful trap” evoked collective amusement and interest.

This dialogue with Piero was more than just an interview; it was an exploration of design evolution and a celebration of Space Furniture’s 30-year legacy. It underscored the essence of adaptability, the art of juxtaposing the ancient with the contemporary, and the sheer joy of sharing these moments with a global community.

Read on for the full conversation between Dana Tomić Hughes and Piero Lissoni below (edited for clarity).

This Yellowtrace Promotion is produced in partnership with Space Furniture. Like everything we do, our partner content is carefully curated to maintain the utmost relevance to our audience. Thank you for supporting the brands that support Yellowtrace.

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Yellowtrace Founder and Editor, Dana Tomić Hughes, sat down with Piero Lissoni at an intimate dinner in Melbourne to talk about his philosophy, life, work and even his favourite type of car. Read on below for more. Photos by Kit Photography.

DANA: Everyone here tonight loves drawing by hand. Actually, Piero was saying earlier how he only ever designs by hand and doesn’t use computers. Do you want to talk about that? I think that’s a good place to start.

PIERO: We are architects. We live in the same field, and we know very well the same level of culture. Sometimes, when I start to think about our profession, it’s like, if you are a writer, you need to know very well, which ways are possible to use the alphabet. When you transform the alphabet into words. After that, you need to know in which way it’s possible to combine words together to transform something into a novel. For that reason, I like to discuss [drawing] with my new generation of architects in a studio. It’s full of young people and they look at me like an old monkey. Sometimes a little bit like a stupid monkey, I am very proud of that. Because I discuss pencils and their capacity to connect to different parts of our body, the brain, muscles. I’m very positive about that because they push me to forget my past. But I push them to forget their present. Because they need a way to use my same language. Not because I’m a dictator, but because our topic is different. You need a way to connect the brain, muscles, nerves, and one pencil. After that, you’re free to choose which kind of tools you like to use.

PIERO: Can you imagine this kind of sophisticated evolution, you know, we saw something somewhere and you start to draw, you take a measure, you take a proportion, you understand immediately what happened. It doesn’t matter if the drawing is not perfect, you know, if it’s naive. If it’s the wrong perspective or the wrong position it doesn’t matter. But this kind of moment, it’s such an intimate and unique moment.

Saké sofa by Piero Lissoni for B&B Italia 2017. Photo courtesy of Space Furniture.

Formiche Coffee Table by Piero Lissoni for B&B Italia. Photo courtesy of Space Furniture.

An original sketch by Piero of the B&B Italia Saké sofa. Courtesy of B&B Italia.

DANA: You think through drawing, in a way, as well? Does it help you articulate ideas?

PIERO: It’s a language. You think 5,000 years ago, we painted, we used this kind of language, the visual language, it was probably the first alphabet when humans started to discuss together. Why don’t we continue, I tell you, I’m a primitive man; why not?

DANA: From our chat earlier, you were saying you don’t look to the past so much and, as much as you are old school, you’re quite future-focused. What do you think we can learn from the new generation of designers? And from the technologies that are emerging?

PIERO: The new generation is in many ways more smart, intelligent, and prepared than us. That’s it. I’m not a nostalgic person, you know, I am growing in another century. I think about the golden age, immediately after the World War, and after the First World War, it was 15 years with incredible levels of change and new technologies and new roads. But after that, when I think about the past, it is for me, like trampling to jump to the future. If you don’t know the past, it’s impossible to do something for the next phase.

DANA: It sounds to me like you’re talking about this idea of having to learn the rules in order to break them.

PIERO: You need to break the rules so that you can innovate. If you don’t know the rules, it’s impossible to break the rules. But if you know the rules, it’s a pleasure to break the rules. It’s fun. When I discuss with my engineers, normally, they use one word—impossible.

Borea Outdoor Collection by Piero Lissoni for B&B Italia. All photos by Tommaso Sartori.

DANA: Does experience help in knowing when and what rules you can break?

PIERO: One simple detail. If you are new to our studio, you need to know some spatial things, we are architects and designers and graphic designers altogether. If you are an architect, you need to know the minimum of static calculations. Otherwise, it’s impossible to discuss things together. If you are a designer, you need to know the least level of knowledge about material treatment in which it is possible to use or not. After that, we jump into a project and discuss it with our group of different engineers from London, New York, and Germany. The calculation needs a special mathematical language you need to know and after that it is possible to decide if it is possible or impossible. Sometimes it’s bullshit.

DANA: You work all around the world. And you wear many, many creative hats. From architecture, interiors, landscape and graphics. And, of course, you’re also the art director for B&B Italia and several other brands. How does one go about scaling a creative output that is of such high quality without losing their mind in the process? How have you done that?

PIERO: It’s super easy. Absolutely. You need to be schizophrenic. It’s like in Melbourne, you see four seasons in one day? Yes. Correct. In my studio, you need to be schizophrenic enough to jump in and out of many different professional opportunities. One day, you are a graphic designer and two hours later, you jump inside a team of industrial design, interior architecture, and engineering, and we are again the same people. So, you know, this kind of interaction between different platforms of professionality is crucial for me. If you’re an architect, you need to be humanistic and, after that, scientific.

Borea Outdoor Collection by Piero Lissoni for B&B Italia. Photo by Tommaso Sartori.

Eda-Mame Sofa by Piero Lissoni for B&B Italia. Photo courtesy of Space Furniture.

Eda-Mame Sofa by Piero Lissoni for B&B Italia. Sketch and images courtesy of Space Furniture.

DANA: When you work as an architect or a designer, you get a brief, and you respond to it, to put it very simply. But how does it work when you are an art director of a brand like B&B Italia? You have to have this 360-degree insight into the business and production and creative expression—how to commission and position products—how to respond to this entire world?

PIERO: I think you need to combine together many different aspects. For me, it’s easier to be a designer or to design something like architecture because I’m focused on solving a problem. When you change your session and you do something like art director, you need to jump inside in another word, they are completely different.

The first dimension is the marketing dimension. The second one is the economic dimension. You are our director, and you are not alone; you need to choose the new generation of designers. You need to choose in a good way because it is not enough to choose. And that’s it, you know, sometimes I make a lot of mistakes. I choose good people to spend time around. But the responsibility is my responsibility. At the same time, you know, when you design one piece, you need to combine together many different aspects to communicate. In which way you show the piece, in which way you design the spaces in which way you’re talking about. And last but not least, you jump inside the technological boundaries of fields. Because when you work for a company like B&B, you need to know exactly what is possible to do or not. This is the art director’s work.

DANA: B&B Italia works with seriously big-name designers where everybody’s ‘somebody’! You must have been in situations where products or designers aren’t always successful, no?

PIERO: You need to be very, very, very diplomatic. But at the same time, you need to be very clear. My colleagues are very, very famous, more famous than me. I have to say when the project is wrong. I need to say no, and I need to talk about the reason why.

DANA: That has got to be difficult.

PIERO: Very difficult, and some of them, they are friends, you know, it’s not easy.

Nooch outdoor sofa by Piero Lissoni for B&B Italia. Photo by Tommaso Sartori.

Dock sofa by Piero Lissoni for B&B Italia. Photo courtesy of Space.

Portrait of Piero, taken by his wife, Veronica Gaido.

DANA: There’s this big conversation about what makes good design? How do you, as someone who looks at design and product, in a very particular way as art director—how do you define what good design is?

PIERO: I like to think about when you do something, you need to be very honest, and secondly, I like to think about good design. It’s an inexistent question because, in the end, everything is good and everything is wrong. One exception, the aesthetic point, the aesthetics and proportions. They change our feelings on whether something is good or bad.
Some pieces are good because they respect a lot of rules and a lot of limits. Some [others are good because] they are not.

Can we talk together about the classical German stupid idea to divide form and function? You have to be born in Berlin to think it is possible to divide form and function. Both of them are connected. The form is born with the function and vice versa. It’s like the egg and chicken. Who was born before? A simple question. It’s a bit provocative, but I think it’s function.

DANA: Some architects and designers will tell you function is paramount. It’s almost like form leads to this idea of beauty, which is the more emotive part of design, and function is the more regimented side of design. And one is more noble than the other. It’s like the pursuit of beauty is this frivolous thing. It belittles design and makes it feel a little bit less valuable. I don’t think there’s enough discussion about the importance of beauty. Beauty is not a dirty word. I mean, it’s what drives humankind. I guess it’s hard to quantify it as it’s subjective.

PIERO: Sometimes it’s subjective, but it’s not completely true. I’m thinking about how some level of beauty is completely objective and pure. Think about the classical. The Golden Ratio is not subjective. It is what it is. Think about proportions and timing when you move inside antique architecture; the level of proportion is incredible. When you move inside a building designed by Mies van der Rohe, the proportions are again incredible.

Now we sometimes design the building totally completely without human measurements. Some malls are three, four times bigger than the Colosseum and the Colosseum for more than 2,000 years, was the biggest building in the world. And honestly, everybody liked the Colosseum; I think it is one of the worst buildings from Roman antiquities. Well, proportioned again.

DANA: It’s so true. All the amazing historical monuments, when you go and visit them, they’re always so much smaller than you think they would be. Everything’s become bigger. We’re making things bigger.

Planck tables by Piero Lissoni for B&B Italia. Photo by Tommaso Sartori.

Planck concept sketches by Piero. Courtesy of B&B Italia.

Piero’s portrait by Veronica Gaido.

DANA: Shall we open up questions to the audience?

PAUL HECKER: I was just about to have a discussion over here about the state of architecture in Melbourne, of which I’m not particularly enamoured. For me, it’s all about the loss of our heritage, and what responsibility architects and builders have about retaining our heritage. Coming from a place like Italy, where you are surrounded by heritage, what do you see as your responsibility as an architect, inserting yourself into that heritage?

PIERO: Such a good question. Well, when we talk about the past, I tell you I’m Italian, I’m surrounded by heritage every day, but I’m not a prisoner of that. All of these beautiful things are inside in my culture, but I’m relatively modern. At the same time, I like to work with antiquities, I like to be, sorry I like to be not Yankee—not Yankee it means you know not to design new buildings.

Luckily in Europe, they asked me to make a renovation, restoration or to add part of a new building to the old one we just finished. For example, one interesting project in Beijing, they are quite wild in that they destroy more or less everything around them. When they asked me to design three new pieces of buildings in Beijing, it was inside an old steel factory. Can you imagine this huge compound? It was a factory for them. It was also easy to destroy everything and to flatten the old land and after that to put on top something completely new. I insisted why do you destroy this incredible old industrial building. It was built immediately after the Second World War. And a funny story, it was a gift from Starling Bank. Can you imagine the engineering from Russia? You know, big, huge, ugly, well, I convinced them not to touch and we started to work around these kinds of pieces of architecture. And we treat them like antique Roman ruins, and we built around the new buildings. That is the European School. If you are growing up in a country like Spain, or Italy, or Greece, or France, or Germany, our historical culture is absolutely strong. At the same time, you know, it’s a trampoline to jump out of. Easy, more or less.

Space Furniture’s Thirty Years exhibition in Sydney. Photos by Studio La Tessa.

JEFF COPOLOV: How do you feel about artificial intelligence in architecture?

PIERO: It’s a tool. There are beautiful drawings made by Macintosh and Rhino, and blah, blah, blah. But they are totally completely empty. You know, if you look into the image inside, it’s completely empty words. i.e it’s, you know, it’s a tool. You need to use the tool anyway. Why not?

DANA: You talk about how you read a lot of books, and you like to immerse yourself in research — it makes sense, especially with the broad spectrum of the work you where you need to have your finger on the pulse. The younger generation in your studio looks at images and harvest information completely differently. They look at headlines, and they combine information—it’s almost like AI in a way. But the end result, you said to me before, is almost the same. That made me think since AI is just harvesting the information that’s already out there, but who’s synthesising this information? Who’s making sense of it?

PIERO: If you think about books, magazines, newspapers, movies, television, photography, paintings, and museums, all of them are tools. If you don’t digest the old information, then you can’t transform information into an intellectual attitude. Information becomes culture. The young generation, they combine together many different pieces of information, they keep information from everywhere, but if you don’t digest it, it doesn’t matter which kind of tool you use.

ANDREW PARR: What sort of cars do you like?

PIERO: Technically speaking, I like some Italian cars. For example, the Cinquecento is a beautiful car. For technological issues, I like Ferrari, but they are too much. In terms of my perfect car, it’s three old models by Porsche. 356, the mother of Porsches in the world. 911, The classic Carrera Targa—the green one. And the last generations of Carrera, I think they are interesting cars. And I like the classic Jaguar. Yeah, the E-type. It’s enough, or if you like, I continue to know, I’m a great fan of Aston Martin five, and six.

I collect…I have in the studio a lot of pieces from the Braun design from the 60s and 50s. And some of them are interesting because they take interesting approaches, but some of them are so idiot. Totally completely idiot, you know, one fan, it’s this cylinder with a propeller. And it didn’t do anything, you know, you put this fan on the table, you plug in. And that’s it, you use all the electricity, the air is moving somewhere. And you think, Okay, where is the function?

DANA: I mean, look, every company has had failed products, some more than others, right?

PIERO: Sometimes I like it. For example, the beautiful armchair designed by Le Corbusier, the classical LC2. Try to sit on these beautiful chairs, low, fat, large and completely totally, unbelievably uncomfortable. When you are sitting there you start to move yourself, you know, you’re sitting like this, after that, you turn after five minutes, you turn on the opposite side.

DANA: People want it for the form. Not the function…?

PIERO: Yes, I choose for the form, not for the function. It’s fantastic. I never think in my mind to change because they are unbelievably beautiful.

DANA: Yes, you value beauty.

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