Thinking Outside The White Box

Veteran Italian designer Roberto Pezzetta continues his explorations in cool looks

Who says household appliances like refrigerators and washing machines have to be boring white metal boxes? Certainly not Roberto Pezzetta, the veteran Italian product designer who revolutionized appliance design in the mid-1980s and continues on his crusade to animate those appliances that help us with daily living. Last year Pezzetta became creative design director for the ironically named white appliances division of the Electrolux Group, perhaps the world's largest producer of household appliances.
"You must consider that appliances are living with us all day," Pezzetta told Tandem recently, in explaining what drives his designs. "They do their job without asking for anything. My question was, 'Why should they then be boring, complicated and ugly'?"
Pezzetta's appliance designs, eye-catching and colourful, are none of those things. His most recent product, the "Izzi" dishwasher, addresses the problem of technology which may create a more efficient machine, but may also frustrate the user. "This very simple domestic machine has an electronic control inside, but it is not shown externally," Pezzetta says, adding that Izzi's body makes it appear to be more household pet than household appliance.
This anthropomorphic theme in Pezzetta's work is perhaps best known through his 1994 "Oz" refrigerator design. The playfully contoured unit features bright orange perforated metal shelving and a door which moves on a soft rubber ball attached at its base to allow greater inside access. Oz has been described as "a bivalve shell, offering the food it contains without reserve, without secrets". The refrigerator, as well as the Izzi dishwasher, earned Pezzetta "Good Design" awards from the Chicago Athenaeum, an architecture and design museum. Oz has also been exhibited at London's Victoria and Albert Museum. The designer was a 1981 recipient of Italy's prestigious Compasso d'Oro design award for his "Estetica C" appliance series.
Pezzetta was born in Treviso in 1946. As a young child, he developed an early interest in all things mechanical thanks to his father's passion for cars and motorcycles. Tragically, Pezzetta's father died in an old Fiat fighter plane accident when Pezzetta was just 15. Deciding against attending university, the budding designer began his professional career in 1967 as an engineer in the research and development department of white goods manufacturer Zoppas. When the company decided to create its own in-house design studio two years later, Pezzetta was selected for the new department based on his distinctive work drawings. Working by day under the tutelage of Bruno Fracarossi (recently hired from competitor Zanussi) and poring over design books by night, Pezzetta steadily immersed himself in the disciplines of product design.
In 1974, Zoppas merged with Pordenone-based Zanussi. Pezzetta left the world of appliance design for a brief period between 1977 and 1978 to create new designs for world-leading ski boot manufacturer Nordica. He realized, however, that appliance design was his first love and in late 1978 he returned to Zanussi and moved with his wife and young daughter to Pordenone, which continues to be his home today. Household appliances giant Electrolux took over Zanussi in 1984 and by this time Pezzetta was well established as the head of Zanussi's industrial design center. Despite the consolidation, the Pordenone company retained a good measure of autonomy and in 1987 Pezzetta introduced the Wizard's Collection, the first true indication of the self-taught designer's ambitions to break out of the white box design sensibility that dominated household appliances.
Sadly for Canadians, much of Pezzetta's innovative work is not available here. He has, however, recently designed a series of kitchen and bathroom scales for Italian manufacturer Guzzini which will be available in this country. This freelance project demonstrates Pezzetta's continuing passion for design explorations in different fields, materials and technologies. As he told Tandem, "You must have a 'valve' after 37 years of domestic appliances!" And he passes on his love of design, telling students that whether a project is large or small, it deserves a total commitment.
In the recent book Designing The 21st Century, by Charlotte and Peter Fiell, Roberto Pezzetta reveals the motivations behind his work: "A piece of advice directed first and foremost to myself and then to anyone who is willing to listen: think in dynamic terms, do not take the easy way out by following the rules and approved solutions, act in the perspective of continuous research, find the courage to make unexpected proposals, and, in addition to your pencil, use that quintessential quality of designers - curiousity".
One hopes Pezzetta's new status as creative design director for the home products division of Electrolux will have a trickle-down effect throughout the industry and, even in Canada, household appliances will soon become more than just dull metal boxes.

Publication Date: 2003-04-06
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=2581