We visited the Alessi Factory and Museum. We had a fantastic and thorough tour of the archives, or what they call the “museum.” They had rows and rows of every product they’ve ever made. Including the prototypes, and final products. There were even some items that never saw production. I loved seeing the process the designers for Alessi go through to get to the final result.
Alessi mainly focuses on home goods, especially kitchen products. Their showroom, which greeted us when we walked in, was vast and full of their favorite collections. It showed the evolution of Alessi products nicely.
One thing that I enjoyed hearing about was their failures. Their failures helped them become the company they are today. Without their biggest flops, they would not be as creative, as design oriented or as innovative. They took leaps of faith and took on projects that were not the usual Alessi projects. For example, they started working with artist’s to make affordable art for the home. They were hand designed objects that were supposed to be put in production, but ultimately never were. Alessi worked with Dali to create a designed object for the home, but the project was shut down before it hit the production line. Failure = future success for Alessi!