If you know Stephen - then you know 1, he's from the South and 2, he loves Dordoni. Can you blame the guy? For either one? Not really, and here's why (at least in regards to the design master, I mean).
Design Profile: Rodolfo Dordoni
Have you ever seen a picture of someone’s house or a particular piece in it and thought to yourself, “I have to meet the person who designed that because they must be so cool!”? Well, this has certainly happened to me many times over the last dozen or so years of being in the design world and being exposed to many awesome designs. About 75% of the time, I have flipped to the resource pages in a magazine or catalog and see that the credit belongs to my now design idol Rodolfo Dordoni. Those are pretty amazing odds don’t-cha think?
Rodolfo (I use only his first name because he is like the ‘Madonna’ of the Italian design world) was born in Milan, the fashion and design mecca of the world, in 1954. After graduating with a degree in Architecture in 1989 he became Cappellini’s art director and launched his first products to the market. Acting as Minotti’s Art director when he left Cappellini in 1998, he took the small family run furniture business barely known outside of Italy and launching it into an international success within 5 years. From there he also became artistic directors with Fontana Arte, Foscarini and Roda.
I first encountered a love for Rodolfo when I saw my first Minotti sofa in 2002. Now, getting close to 10 years later his designs have become further ingrained as classics. Simply put, he creates pieces with classic lines and with equal parts modern to traditional. His designs tend to work perfectly in mid-century homes as much as they work in stark raving modern lofts. Also, he tends to pull a lot of influences from different periods of history in his designs especially Bauhaus and Art Deco.
Hope you enjoy his work as much as I have.
