Alberto Alessi actually wanted to commission a new series of pots in 2010, in keeping with his concept of breaking through boundaries. Alessi had already succeeded in this kind of transgression with pots that were so well designed that people were happy to leave them on the dining table during their meal – a habit previously considered unsophisticated. Pots moved from the kitchen to the dining room. However, instead of thinking about a new range of pots, we wondered instead how we could break through another boundary with a pot. This gave rise to the idea for the Last Pot project, a series of urns, but the concept was so radical that Alessi was not yet ready for it in 2010.
Subsequently, in 2016, Renato Bialetti’s ashes were buried in a Moka Express, an avant-garde act that seemed to echo our original idea. Thirteen years later, in 2023, we contacted Alessi again and our proposal dovetailed well with the new craftsmanship-oriented product line Il Tornitore Matto (literally: the crazy turner). We were commissioned to develop the cultural context for the project, as well as preparing the project briefing and research for a larger project, which now also involves a number of other designers from a range of cultural backgrounds.
The 2023 drawing illustrates how Alessi’s pots break through boundaries.
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Original design sketch for the Last Pot project, 2010.
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First presentation at Alessi: bags with various amounts of ash from birds, cats, dogs and humans.
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In typological terms, an urn is simply a container with a lid and a capacity of at least 3.5 liters for humans and 2 liters for larger animals. Considering the need to include a lid that is not easy to open gave us the idea of taking a typical paint can lid as our starting point. By making the edge of the lid in the conventional design higher and wider, we transformed it into a sacred, symbolic “ring of life.” The dates of birth and death of the deceased being stored inside can be engraved onto it. The small and large urns can also be stacked, creating a column made up of various elements. Originally, totems represented families, clans or tribes. We find it poetic to think that our totem could hold not only the remains of people and animals, but perhaps also the ashes of the cherry tree in the garden that was felled after almost a century, where the cat used to chase birds.
Sketch of the urn tower.
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Draft for the inscription on the lid ring. The edge of a simple household colored lid becomes the raised, symbolic ring of a sacred object.
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Cutaway illustration of the final product. Due to burial regulations, the urn also has a sealable lid on the inside. Following spread: the lid’s pronounced ring symbolizes the circle of life. However, it could also be seen as the calligraphic ensō form in Zen Buddhism or other historical representations of the circle of life in various cultures.
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The book ‘The last pot’ documents our research, the development of the cultural context for the Meta project and the resulting designs for the urns for ‘il tornitore matto’ by Alessi.
The results are works by designers such as Michael Anastassiades, David Chipperfield, Michele De Lucchi, Naoto Fukasawa, Giulio Iacchetti, Audrey Large, Daniel Libeskind, Philippe Starck and Mario Tsai and our „Totem“.
The book, curated by Federica Sala, is enriched by texts by Andrea Staid, Valeria Parrella, Igiaba Scego and Giulia Ubaldi as well as photographs by Claudia Zalla, which were created in collaboration with Studio Testo.
Published by Corraini Edizioni.
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