Cooper-Hewitt: Alberto Alessi in Conversation with Bill Moggridge

Since taking the company helm in 1970, Alberto Alessi, President and Director of Marketing Strategies and Design Management, has continually striven to work at the heart of international creative culture, treating the company as a "research lab in the Applied Arts". Aided by Alberto's entrepreneurial flair, Alessi successfully continues to explore and research the most forward ideas in design. Collaborating with world class designers and architects, Alessi has radically extended the product offering from the fundamental household to include innovative yet practical products. The conversation will focus on the history of Alessi's development as an Italian Design Factory from its beginning in 1921, through the present and into the future. Mr. Alessi will speak to the role of objects in modern consumer society, comparing the Italian Design Factories with Mass Production Factories as two opposite approaches to design, and, finally, design as art and poetry. The presentation will be followed by a discussion with Bill Moggridge, Director of Cooper-Hewitt.