Francesco Forcellini: from the Renaissance to generative design

25 October 2024

Francesco Forcellini was born 36 years ago in Milan, raised in Florence, returned to Milan to study at the Polytechnic and then landed in London and Eindhoven to complete his education and focus his vision. His path has already crossed many significant places for design, and each has contributed to giving shape to his style, which in an unexpected synthesis embraces the classical harmonies of the Florentine Renaissance and the imaginative opportunities of generative design.

He speaks of unconscious influences and refers to the different ways of doing design and different aesthetics – Danish, London and Italian – that have helped him to have a broader and more complete vision of the subject.

Florence, London, Eindhoven, Milan: how have these cities influenced your aesthetic vision?

I grew up in Florence and it influenced me a lot in my adolescence on aesthetic canons, so these classical, harmonious, Renaissance proportions, which you see and internalize when walking, became very familiar because I saw them every day, maybe going to school. Then I have to say that Milan is also very beautiful, in my opinion, in its architecture, maybe more linked to patterns, these architectural repetitions. Just like London, on the other hand, it is much more varied. Also, for works of art: I recently went back to London to see some paintings that I really like, which are in museums. And so yes, that experience influenced me a lot and in a less conscious way, in a certain sense.

Over the years have you met or discovered a designer or a company that you felt inspired by in particular?

Surely when I started working with Bentley Home I was stimulated by the automotive world, which has curves, designs, a way of approaching design that is very different from classic furniture design. It was a great challenge to start from that culture, extracting its codes without making them too explicit. It was a very fresh experience for me that allowed me to enrich my language.

In your opinion, how can your generation improve the design scene overall?

In my opinion, the responsibility we have is to put values ​​into what we do, so each of us should try to insert the values ​​we deem most appropriate. It is no longer just a question of language, of design, of expressing one’s personality, but also of expressing certain values, so, maybe obviously, giving emphasis to how things are produced, to the sustainability of the product, a certain manufacturing ethic but also of trying to do things that have a meaning. Also, because the market is saturated and therefore I think there is a great need for meaning, for concreteness.

In addition to the projects you carry out with companies, do you have space to cultivate your independent projects?

Yes, and this happens in various ways: normally I try to experiment with techniques, for example related to sewing, weaving, things that can be modeled without too much technology and then maybe pass them on to more advanced machinery. This research can enter commercial production or not. One thing, in my opinion, that is quite interesting that I have worked on in recent years is generative design. For example, a project of mine that participated in the Fuori Salone in which, starting from some weaves, a javascript code was created that then generated these images of woven fabrics by combining patterns made in a traditional way and not, in a random way.

This kind of research is a sort of fuel, a game which does not necessarily have to lead to something commercial, but maybe for this very reason you are freer to look for different things and then sometimes they are integrated into the products.

In my opinion, there is a quite interesting result of these dynamics in the Trace vases made for Cappellini in 2021.

I was still in Eindhoven and with one of the first 3D printers I started printing, doing tests of surfaces without a specific goal in mind. Then I noticed that all these imperfections were created and from this research then the basis was born to make those vases whose first positive is printed in 3D.

So sometimes the results of an experiment are applied and sometimes not, however, in my opinion, they are very important to continue to think in a free and unconstrained way.

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