giorgetto giugiaro, interview with the creator of the volkswagen golf and the fiat panda, has styled more than 160 other cars ......................................
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giorgetto giugiaro was born on 1938 in garessio (cuneo), north west italy. his father was a painter and his grandfather was a church painter. after moving to turin, giorgetto switched between art, and technical design. at 17, he started working at the 'fiat' styling center. however, finding it impossible, in a large organisation such as 'fiat', to grow rapidly, he took a giant step and, in december 1959, became head of the 'bertone' styling centre. after six highly intense years, in 1965, he left to join the management of 'ghia', another firm of coachbuilders. on february 1967, giugiaro founded his first company, 'ital styling', where he continued to work with 'ghia' on a freelance basis but where he also prepared to take a leap into the unknown. he would invest his professional and financial capital in a global challenge, a professional services company for the motor industry. and hence italdesign was born. under the italdesign-giugiaro trademark giugiaro has officially styled over 100 cars then mass-produced, besides developing many others under wraps for the world's top manufacturers, and many are even the research prototypes. [ see the list ] since 1974 giugiaro set up an industrial design division inside italdesign to develop medium- and large-scale production projects for many industrial sectors: optics-photographic (nikon), telephones (telecom, urmet, swatch), furniture (cinova, del tongo, fiam), electrical appliances (merloni elettrodomestici), computer (apple), watches (seiko), cosmetics (l'oreal, shiseido), visual identity (rai, telepiù ) and many more. giugiaro has won numerous design awards, the most prestigious of which include the 'siad silver medal' of the british society of artists and industrial designers in 1980 the 'compasso d'oro' for the fiat panda and in 1984 the 'compasso d'oro' for coachwork design . in the same year the royal college of art in london awarded him an honorary degree in design. in 1995 the 'golden steering-wheel' was awarded to his figure and career and a second one to his 'fiat punto' design. in 1999, in las vegas, a jury of more than 120 journalists coming from all over the world, has elected giorgetto giugiaro as designer of the century. in 2001 giugiaro, together with 12 prestigious figures in the automobile industry, was chosen by an international jury to be ‘immortalized’ in the ‘hall of fame’ at the palaexpo in geneva. http://www.italdesign.it the design work of giorgetto giugiaro is part of following manufacturer's collections : www.alfaromeo.com www.audi.com www.bmw.com www.bugatti.com www.daewoomotor.com www.delorean.com www.fiat.com www.lancia.com www.nikon.com www.seikousa.com www.vw.com	giorgetto giugiaro © designboom quicktime cliip 1475 kb quicktime clip 584 kb --- * visualize a futuristic prototype of 1968 alfa romeo alfa sud, 1971: original drawing
--- we met giorgetto giugiaro in italdesign's moncalieri (turin) headquarters the 25.01.2001 what is your best moment of the day? the morning or the evening when everyone has left and I can take stock of the day in peace. what kind of music do you listen to at the moment? I come from a family of musicians. everyone played an instrument. but my father decided I should draw, in the end I have neglected music, even if I enjoy investigating its secrets do you listen to the radio? no. when I am driving I turn everything off. I have everything in my car: a computer, a navigator, a cd player... but I turn everything off and just think. the only station that you can listen to in all of italy without losing it on the tuner is 'radio maria'. you can tune in from anywhere. what books do you have on your bedside table? I like to read the ancient greek philosophers. plato, aristotle,...I do it every now and then in the sense that I have reread them over and over. it is a wonderful way to sharpen your capacity to analyze. or I read books about our time: by giorgio bocca, enzo biagi... do you read design magazines? I flip through them, like everyone else... and that is the best way, because you can remember feelings from images without the need for a text that can influence your perception of those images. newspapers? where do you get news from? I read la stampa (a daily paper from turin) and weekly magazines. do you notice how women are dressing? do you have any preferences? its not like the past when women followed fashion trends, only suits or miniskirts... now there is emancipation in the way women dress, and it is a pleasure to see how a woman creates her own look and then afterwards transforms it. what kind of clothes do you avoid wearing? extravagant clothes that get noticed. I don’t like the idea in the art world that if you don’t dress in a certain way, you’re not a good artist. I work in a very serious environment, so I try to put the people I talk to at ease by dressing simply. do you have any pets? yes, a cat. I like cats because they are independent. when you were a child, what did you want to be? a painter, I wanted to be a painter and so did my family, who encouraged me to study and paint. one day a professor said to me: being an artist is hard, you starve, use your talent for drawing in other disciplines. I decided to take the job at fiat to have a steady salary. there I discovered the world of creativity. but I still dreamed about becoming a painter. where do you work on your designs and projects? here in my office, I start thinking about cars, when I am in this room. describe your style, like a good friend of yours would describe it. I don’t know if I have a particular style, in order to get at the form of a car or another object I don’t look for decorative justifications. it wasn’t an architect or a designer who invented objects, but an artisan. his intent wasn’t to create a beautiful form, but a functional one. the hammer, the pliers were invented that way. look at these scissors. quicktime cliip 1475 kb ... those who say that everything needs to be redesigned also design spoons with a curved handle, forgetting that a spoon with a curved handle spills. my philosophy in cars and objects is that the form should be honest, we could say that I try to remove the superfluous and be harmonious, I strive for harmony in complexity. I know that I have to decorate the product, give it a characteristic and an emotion, so that it is not rejected by the market. which of your projects has given you the most satisfaction? and which do you like the most? many have given me satisfaction, some more and some less. there is not one in particular. I could say that the golf program happened in a delicate moment of my career and its success opened a lot of doors for me. are concept cars the future vision of designers and car manufacturers or are they the response to the public’s need for new things? the public doesn’t ask for anything. you are the one offering them something. f concept cars are all similar to each other it is because we designers can be influenced. I can influence but also be influenced. in the world there are some incredibly talented designers and there is an infinite number of forms and trends. when I design I imagine that I the first buyer, even for a utilitarian vehicle. when they say that the public demands this or that evolution in style, that’s not true. marketing people, as organized and expert as they are, are not able to pass a brief that guarantees success. what kind of relationship do you have with marketing consultants? often turbulent. the consumer’s decision to buy is often instinctive, subliminal. I am not convinced that an aspiring wizard just out of bocconi should dictate the decalogue to the car people. except in exceptional cases, which might exist... research for new materials, testing them, sensitivity towards the environment and pollution have opened new horizons in car manufacturing. what do you think it will be like 10 years from now? at italdesign we are ‘spoiled’ by researchers who share the latest materials, patents, systems with us. it is vital to keep up with this fast development because innovations make everything that existed before obsolete. who would you like to design something for? I would like to design for the space industry, a world of high-tech objects: space stations, where luckily marketing has little or no influence on the product when you are working, do you discuss or exchange ideas with your colleagues? in companies with an infinity of experiences and technical capabilities it often happens that there are discussions. rather we never seem to find the time to dedicate more days (after the press conferences) to salons to have the opportunity to discuss the new tendencies together. is there any architect or designer from past you appreciate a lot? they are many: bruno sacco at mercedes. renzo piano in architecture. what do you think about the spreading of knowledge via internet? do you consider it as a tool for sharing knowledge, or do you think it is a sort of ‘big brother’? it is a tool. it has infinite possibilities. a huge amount of information, before unimaginable, is available. but it is too totalitarian, you can spend all of your time in it, not getting anything else done. on the news they said that italians are afraid of unemployment, criminality and pollution. what are you afraid of regarding the future? what i fear the most is impersonalization through mediating instruments. I dialogue with you but I don’t look you in the eye. I don’t know if you are lying... in a small town you go into a shop and you dialogue with the shop-keeper, in whom you place your trust in choosing products. if you go to a supermarket, who do you dialogue with? this process of reducing human relationships for economic profit worries me.	alfa romeo alfa sud, 1971 volkswagen golf, 1974 fiat panda, 1980 de lorean DMC 12, 1981 star of the movie 'back to the future' quicktime clip 584 kb oldsmobile incas, 1986 the steering wheel has gone, replaced by an aeronautic-style joystick bmw nazca, research prototype, 1991 columbus, research prototype, 1992
the questionaire of marcel proust (1871 - 1922) ...................................................................................................................................................... (in age of fourteen proust was given an english album "confessions : an album to record thoughts, feelings". seven years later marcel proust published this questionaire) in the literary salons in nineteenth century paris, this parlour game was a popular amusement. for designboom giorgetto giugiaro has answered these 'old fashioned' questions. .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
the main lineaments of my character. optimistic, willing. a quality I desire in a man. honesty. keeping your word. a quality I desire in a woman. sincerity what I appreciate most among my friends. that they are faithful, that I can count on them my principal defect. I am direct, and I say what I think my favourite occupation. my work my dream of felicity. to have complete freedom what would for me be the biggest misfortune. to lose my health and be unable to move. whom I would like to be. a man not subject to conditions the country were I would like to live. one’s birthplace the colour I prefer. light blue the flower I love. gentian the bird I prefer. sparrows. my favourite authors. - my favourite poets. dante my heroes in fiction. tex willer my heroines in fiction. - my favourite composers. rossini my favourite artists. gaugin. my heroes in real life. - my heroines in history. joan of arc my favourite names. laura what I hate most. rudeness. the historic characters I dislike most. hitler the military enterprise I like the most. the us military during ww2 the reformation I appreciate the most. women’s suffrage nature’s gift I would like to have. to be able to sing. how I would like to die. with one swift blow my soul's present condition. optimistic. the faults I can bear. the ones of love. my motto. go for it --- ------- monthly designboom newsletter ------- ------- ? comments and contact us ? -------	vw w12 syncro, 1997 maserati 3200 GT 1998 nikon F5, 1996 cisalpino ETR 470, train 1996 winning project for the new organ of the losanna cathedral (state of vaud)