Guglielmo Poletti

As Milanese, I am attached to my city. As European, I do love the cultural variety of my continent very much. One day I’ll might live in the most beautiful city of the world, Paris, always being able to get quick to London, center of contemporary art, and to Milan, hometown of Italian Design. But since I’ve just moved to Eindhoven, this is a very open issue.

I get very inspired by pure forms, which is usually the result of a complex thought, as in great works of conceptual artists like Donald Judd, Fred Sandback or by Japanese designers. I admire the totally free and bit surrealistic way a designer like Ingo Maurer has experimented with lighting, making us dream.

I like designer who enjoy playing with both fields: art, characterized by contemplation and filled with aura, and design, characterized by use and function. I admire the capacity of focusing on the emotional aspect of an object. To design is a very intimate approach, which aims to tell a story through the project, the one of your own creative drive and its origins.

When I feel comfortable within an artistic entourage and an environment there is nothing I enjoy more than playing with a project. It gives you the possibility to discover what you are really looking for and the role you want to play.

I am a reflective person, and that influences my everyday life. In the practice, it can be very a positive characteristic, but for me sometimes it’s been an obstacle as well. It is all about finding the right formula – and not getting stuck to.

I'm in a phase of life in which I have to take many important decisions, in order to define the best path to complete my research. The results will be positive as a consequence of good choices, and negative as a consequence of my mistakes. I will tell you the biggest mistake in a few years!

I think true happiness usually comes if you have developed the instruments necessary to achieve a deep awareness of yourself, combined with a certain level of freedom. So, for me, happiness comes as the result of a kind of an inner journey.

Friends living far from you and the out-of-the-comfort zones you have to pass, in order to understand what you don’t like and what you do truly like. But I think it always works like this.

Metals, which can be shaped in so many ways always obtaining a very precise result. They have different characteristics, and can be combined with many other materials, such as glass, wood, stone or leather and fabrics. I am fascinated by materials which have an ancient story, you can exploite a lot of amazing craftsmanship traditions and techniques from it, or many industrial material innovations as well.

Tulips, because of its clean elegance and of the amazing color combinations. When you look at them you feel the powerful beauty of nature.

I am not really able to listen to music while working, as I lose a bit of concentration. It’s like being taken away by your imagination and the feelings that music usually evokes.

I don’t feel very comfortable with the idea of the “designers of everything”, being sometimes hard-pushed by marketing, becoming a bit of a pop-star. I prefer artists and designers who seek to find their own route, instead of trying to embrace all the existing ones. Usually they are the ones who really have something personal to investigate.

The ability of having a total approach to the project, to equally focus on the different aspects of it, from the most artistic and conceptual part to the most technical one of the realization. Sometimes it is hard to reach a high level by embracing both skills.

Very excited: I am at the beginning of a new life experience at the Design Academy Eindhoven. At the same time, I’ve just started to define my language through the collection of pieces I recently presented.. So at the moment I am quite open and curious, a bit of a white sheet but with some solid benchmarks around it.

I have too many to summarize them all in just one.