‘My work is borderline. I have always paid much attention to the matter and its evoking power’
Take five minutes to discover a famed architect who has been signing his name on many important design brands collections: Massimo Castagna.
Passionate vocation or rational approach? How have Massimo Castagna, architecture and design crossed paths? Castagna recounts, “Late 60s, I am with my father who has been producing steel furniture for quite a long time. Suddenly, a man walks in with a sort of wood cabinet in his hands. He asks my father to make it in steel. The man was Osvaldo Borsani and, one year after,
that cabinet won the award Compasso d’Oro ADI with the name Graphis. At that moment, the word ‘design’ did not even exist, but I guess I had already found my way.” After his architectural studies concluded in 1984 at the Polytechnic University of Milan, Massimo Castagna founded the studio AD Architettura.
Today, he is still following important projects for international and historical design brands. He has worked with many significant names in the design world, including Acerbis International, Ceccotti Collezioni, Exteta, Gallotti&Radice, Giorgetti, knIndustrie, Minotti and Rossana Cucine. Massimo Castagna also continues in his role as Art Director for brands like Henge, which he has been following since its very inception.
Beyond their visual appeal, Massimo Castagna’s signature architecture, use of space and products are created to evoke emotions, “If I should use only one word to describe my work, I would choose freedom. I do not want to feel constrained by clichés. I pursue the expressiveness of shape and material as a unique being, taking design beyond formalism and the boundaries of industrial productions, outrunning the politically correctness. My work plays on the border between design and artistic influences. It is always challenging to bring the expressiveness out of a material, since it is strictly connected to the way it is crafted: there is need of master hands passionate to share a dream and aim for the result.”
Henge’s new collection, entirely designed by Massimo Castagna, is both a radical change in its more contemporary look and is a faithful continuum of his previous collections. He states, “Henge is an extraordinary journey whose true essence is the passion bonding my work to Paolo Tormena’s and to the craftsmen’s. It is a unique project nobody can put a label on: constantly evolving, a path to follow for its congruency with its past, with its spirit and philosophy, interpreting the dreams of today and stimulating the ones of tomorrow, becoming part and cause of the change.”
Take five minutes to discover a famed architect who has been signing his name on many important design brands collections: Massimo Castagna.
Passionate vocation or rational approach? How have Massimo Castagna, architecture and design crossed paths? Castagna recounts, “Late 60s, I am with my father who has been producing steel furniture for quite a long time. Suddenly, a man walks in with a sort of wood cabinet in his hands. He asks my father to make it in steel. The man was Osvaldo Borsani and, one year after,
that cabinet won the award Compasso d’Oro ADI with the name Graphis. At that moment, the word ‘design’ did not even exist, but I guess I had already found my way.” After his architectural studies concluded in 1984 at the Polytechnic University of Milan, Massimo Castagna founded the studio AD Architettura.
Today, he is still following important projects for international and historical design brands. He has worked with many significant names in the design world, including Acerbis International, Ceccotti Collezioni, Exteta, Gallotti&Radice, Giorgetti, knIndustrie, Minotti and Rossana Cucine. Massimo Castagna also continues in his role as Art Director for brands like Henge, which he has been following since its very inception.
