GIUSEPPE RIVADOSSI. The poetics of living

Giuseppe Rivadossi, born in 1935 in Monteclana di Nave (Bs) – where he still lives and works – began his career as a sculptor at a young age, through works already linked to his idea of living. In 1962 he began to transform the carpentry shop founded in 1920 by his father Clemente into an atelier: thus began the experience of the Rivadossi workshop in 1976. Giuseppe Rivadossi’s “utopia” was to rebuild a poetic space for man; to serve and humanize the living spaces that some currents of new architecture had dehumanized and debased. In 2001 he decided to dissolve the Rivadossi Workshop and to give life, with his children and his collaborators, to a new creative adventure: Giuseppe Rivadossi Officina. The entire production of tables, chairs, sideboards, bookcases, beds and sideboards had to express a recognizable style: futuristic but always on a human scale. This happened thanks to the color of the wood left natural, the attention given to details such as hidden hinges and locks, the surfaces meticulously worked in bas-relief effects. Stylistic, functional and structural choices that have been able to immediately characterize its production and its techniques: the excavation from the block, the joint assembly, the finishing with hand planing and gouging. Architectural and furniture solutions that bring back to the practical and poetic dimension of living. The works of the atelier are present in various collections: at the Moma in New York, in the Tamajo collection in Mexico City, in the Shard in London and in Shanghai. Today in his workshop Giuseppe Rivadossi works with his sons, with the Habito brand, on the creation of new works in wood.