Bitossi Archive Museum Opens in Montelupo Fiorentino.

The Bitossi Archive Museum has opened in Montelupo Fiorentino, showcasing the vast industrial archive of Bitossi – the Florentine ceramic excellence that this year celebrates the centenary of its history – revealed to the public for the first time. The museum – designed by architect Luca Cipelletti, founder of AR.CH.IT – measures 1,500 square metres encompassing the production space, and preserves the original structure of premises.

The star of the show is Bitossi’s entire historical archive – consisting of some seven thousand pieces of ceramic; a selection of plaster models and forms; work tools; a body of photographs and paper documents – all offered as a resource by professionals and the public free of charge, as an educational and consultation tool, but also a testimony and source of inspiration.

The mise-en-scène, the result of a specific ‘museographic’ and curatorial staging, lines up a varied and colourful gallery of the production repertoire on sight specific fir-wood shelving that appears as a mass in motion. Sorted by chronology and type, it is broken down into different levels of use, with central zones dedicated to exceptional installation moments and ceramics of particular interest, such as the coloured Rimini by the historic creative director of Bitossi, Aldo Londi, the Totems by Ettore Sottsass or the work Il dormiente con il coccodrillo (Sleeping ones and crocodiles) by Mimmo Paladino.

“The public will be projected into an immersive, totally physical and perceptive experience that takes place by itself in a rigid but permeable space, in which everything seems animated and floating. It changes when the observation point changes, the lure of a silhouette, the vibration of colour,” explains Porzia Bergamasco, curator of the exhibition.

The collection is accompanied by an extensive paper archive of drawings, workbooks and other documents relating to design and marketing that form a picture gallery. The last shelf is empty; a place to be filled with the results of new collaborations. The latest Bitossi collection is presented in a dedicated project room, currently hosting the series of ceramics signed by French artist Pierre Marie, a meeting between the artist’s imaginative worlds and the long ceramic tradition.

The path – which eventually leads to the company showroom with the latest collections in the catalogue – develops as an immersive experience in a structured but permeable space designed to change over time if required, crossing decades of the history of the brand that has collaborated with the most important voices of design of each era, an opportunity for evolution and the very weaving of one’s own identity — Ettore Sottsass, Nathalie Du Pasquier, George J. Sowden, Marco Zanini, Christoph Radl, Michele De Lucchi, Karim Rashid, Arik Levy, Fabio Novembre; up to the latest generations, such as Max Lamb, Formafantasma, Dimorestudio, Benjamin Hubert, Quincoces-Dragò, Bethan Laura Wood and Pierre Marie.

Related: Museum for Architectural Models in Shanghai, China by Wutopia Lab.

[Images courtesy of Bitossi. Photography by Delfino Sisto Legnani/ Agnese Bedini.]