The first furniture designed by me was a commode conceived as a container that had to be suitable to make sure that it might be painted. They were four identical commodes painted by Carlo Bertocci, Paolo Fiorentino, Massimo Livadiotti e Salvo Russo for an exhibition entitled “Mobili in una stanza” that was held in the Gallery “ Il Polittico” in Rome in 1994.
The exhibition was successfully accepted by the critic and by the public. Because of their uniqueness, the four commodes jointed the Nicola and Paolo Bulgari’s collections. In a trip in Venice during the Biennale d’Arte, sailing the Canal Grande arose the idea to realise some decor boxes inspired by venetian architecture (dome and steeple). Then the new boxes took the form of roman architecture.
The exhibition success and the desire of artists to face different canvas surfaces and volumes, encouraged me to design a series of new furniture and object for a second exhibition that was held in the same space in 1996 entitled “L’Oggetto, il Mobile , l’Interno”. In this second exhibition were designed the chairs “Mezza Luna” and “Quarto di Luna” , a board, a table, a screen, lamps and boxes as architecture. In this event, the artists that faced new shapes were nineteen.
In occasion of exhibition events linked to italian design in the U.S.A. , where I presented the pieces of furniture’s collection entitled “Astri” in the cities of Chigago (2000) and Los Angeles (2001), the boxes “Roma” were hosted in the jewellery shop window of BVLGARI and exposed as a support for the jewellery of their collection. The “Roma” boxes, after longw time, are clearly visible in Woody Allen movie “To rome with love” (2012) in the Suite Designer of St. Regis Grand Rome.(2012).
I designed the first not painted furniture, with sphere presence, sphere that becomes the main character of my furniture, because I had a request, by a friend of mine, to think about a dresser placed in her baby’s room.
The sphere represented to me the “ball” thought as a game, a game of primary importance for a baby. That’s how was born the first furniture of Astri’s collection entitled “Le Lune”. The choice of the sphere as baby’s first play object, became the creation’s lite motif. The ever-present sphere in significant numbers gives rhythm, and Gold Leaf donates preciousness and light which I associate with galaxy’s stars. The sphere as point of light and the stars light brought me to associate the creations that I was carrying out to the stars. That was the reason of the choice of collection’s name composed of different pieces entitled Orione, Marte, Oberon, Colonna Stellare, Anfora Aurea, Pianeti, Olympus, Vega, etc.
