Giuseppe Amato

Nautoscopio

GIUSEPPE AMATO, born in Palermo in 1970, took a degree in molecular biology at the University of Pavia in 1993. In 1994, during a trip to Japan, he met the master Sori Yanagi, with whom he visited Villa Katsura in Kyoto. From that moment on he abandoned his research at the university and began to work with wood. He opened a studio/workshop in Milan with old machinery salvaged from a historic carpentry shop. Here he learned to use the techniques of classic cabinet-making to create furniture of his own design, combining the study of construction techniques and materials with his own research on forms. His aim was to avoid any “déjà vu” citation of antiques, but also the banality of industrial production, creating unique, original works. In 2001 he had a show in New York, at the Felissimo Design House, together with Ron Arad and Philippe Starck. That same year he showed his works in Tokyo and Osaka at the Hankyu and Isetan art galleries. In Milan his work is shown at the Compagnia del Disegno in Brera and the Open Mind gallery on Via Dante. Individual works by Giuseppe Amato are found in the country home of Enrico Job in Brescia, the New York loft of Earl McGrath, the 16th-century palazzo of Ducrot in Rome, the Roman home of Lina Wertmüller, and the atelier of Sori Yanagi in Tokyo. In 2004 he opened his studio in Milan at Largo Richini 14, in front of the State University. That same year Umberto Angeloni of the maison Brioni commissioned works for the boutiques in Milan and the special suite of the Four Seasons hotel on via Gesù. This collaboration has continued with a project for a wooden villa to be built on the island of Brioni in Croatia. The result is the project Sixty Tons, displayed, on a scale of 1:10, at the studio on Largo Richini. This led Amato into the area of the design of “artist’s houses”, dwellings mostly in wood, conceived as art objects. The “nautoscopio” is a project from the “artist’s houses” series, which will be presented in an exclusive preview during the event “Green Energy Design” organized by the magazine Interni during Design Week in Milan.