“Most Illustrious. It is a gift to those people that, maybe unknowingly, have given so much to my perception of design. Their commitment and their works have modeled and educated my vision and my taste; as truthful masters, they had no need to introduce themselves, to speak or to tell their ideas to stand out; the energy of their creations was sufficient to make me understand who they really were and what was their vision, proving that all designers are what they create, in the end. I had fun mixing colours, stacking objects and shapes to create a sort of tribute that, with great humility, shows my way of seeing them.” 

Riccardo Dalisi

After moving to Naples in the fifties to undertake architectural studies, Riccardo Dalisi (Potenza, 1931) immediately distinguished himself for a versatility that led him to constantly converge art, architecture and design to the point where he no longer distinguished the field of action of the individual disciplines. Among the first to formulate the concept of sustainability applied to industrial design, Dalisi uses for its sculptures and design objects poor materials such as papier-mâché and then tin, copper, iron, brass, which acquire preciousness in the process of modeling and artisanal transformation. Each object, whether it is intended for industrial production or the art circuit, becomes the spokesperson of a personal sensibility that draws on the Neapolitan tradition, both in form and in the way it is produced.
In the sixties he created a removable and recyclable table while in 1969 he became a professor at the faculty of architecture in Naples and in 1973 he was one of the founders of the Global Tools movement. Also in those years he realizes redevelopment works of the Rione Traiano exploiting the cooperation with local artisans.
In 1979, commissioned by the Alessi company to produce a version of the classic Neapolitan, he began his research work on the Neapolitan coffee maker. From the prototypes invented in the daily relationship with the lattonai and the Rua Catalana branchers, Dalisi has always experimented with new uses and functions for that instrument which has now become the fulcrum of a comic work of design, awarded with the Compasso d'Oro 1981. This research, which has produced coffee pots of various shapes and sculptures that play with the implications of those old forms, seems never to end, like the manipulation of a magical object, which reveals to each player's move a new part of himself and of the man who moves it. In 1987 the Neapolitan coffee pot enters production and Dalisi becomes internationally known. As a designer he has a great experience and doctrine, creating forms that have been marketed by well-known companies such as: Zabro, Zanotta, Alessi, Oluce, Playline, Morphos, Fiat, Munari, Kleis, Baleri, Rex, Slamp, Eschenbach, WMF, Rosenthal, Ritzenhoff, Il Cocchio, Glass, Bisazza.