Michele de Lucchi

Michele De Lucchi is an architect, designer and artist, and one of the defining voices of Italian design over the past half-century. Born in Ferrara in 1951, he graduated in architecture from the University of Florence and quickly became part of the radical design movement. He was a key figure in Studio Alchimia and then Memphis, alongside Ettore Sottsass. From 1988 to 2002 he led Olivetti Design, and he has designed furniture for many of Italy’s and Europe’s most respected companies. His architectural work spans cultural, corporate, industrial and residential projects around the world.

Today he leads AMDL CIRCLE, a multidisciplinary studio known for its humanistic approach to architecture, interiors, design and graphics. Alongside his professional practice, he has spent more than twenty years drawing, painting and carving wooden objects and models in his workshops in Milan and Angera, searching for the essential nature of architectural form. His work is held in major museums across Europe, the United States and Japan, and in 2003 the Centre Pompidou in Paris acquired a substantial collection of it. His honours include the Compasso d’Oro Career Award in 2022, professorships at IUAV Venice and the Polytechnic of Milan, and appointment as an Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France.

De Lucchi’s most famous design is the Tolomeo, created for Artemide with Giancarlo Fassina in the late 1980s. With its slim aluminium arms and adjustable, tension-balanced head, it won the Compasso d’Oro and went on to become one of the best-selling lamps in the world. Today the Tolomeo family spans desk, floor, wall and pendant versions. His long collaboration with Artemide also includes Logico, designed with Gerhard Reichert, whose layered, sculptural glass diffusers float above slender metal arms.

In 1991 De Lucchi founded his own brand, Produzione Privata, as a continuation of the Memphis spirit. Free from commissions and the constraints of industrial production, it gives him room to design and make experimental objects with complete freedom of expression. The collection is grounded in artisanal craftsmanship and a functional philosophy, and it celebrates the innate character of materials like blown glass, metal and wood. Its lighting in particular shows what can take shape when imagination meets the right material and the right technique.

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