PROJECTS & STORIES | #Journeys in the Giorgetti Archive. Gazebo

By Cristiana Colli

It’s the 1970s, Giorgetti is a brand that is celebrated, loved and recognised all over the world, especially on the American market. But the winds of change are blowing, there are new vibes, other styles and cultures are starting to spread, a desire for different shapes becomes palpable. Carlo Giorgetti feels that the passage from antiques to modern furniture is in the air and knows that it’s going to mark a definite turning point.
Thus, the Gazebo collection is born—from the pencil and talent of the technical office, the R&D Department led by Umberto Asnago—a simple name, an ode to the breezy outdoors, a tribute to colour with the undisputable rigour of Giorgetti’s excellent quality. Everything is set, the ideas are clear, the directive is to recall bamboo and its fluid nature encompassing both the indoor and outdoor, but to use solid wood instead. Specifically, ash wood, reliable but flexible, easy to work with, solid  yet humble and capable of welcoming a variety of different finishes, skilful combinations of colours, fillings, configurations. But there’s a problem: how can we break free from linearity and step into the magic world of curves where fluting is destined to open up to the great variety of designs and advancements in the collection?
This is the turning point, a confirmation of the mechanical tradition that is inherent in Italian manufacture. Giorgetti—which boasts constant long-standing incremental innovation across all the production processes and skills associated with selecting wood and woodworking—resolves this technical issue in its dedicated workshop and creates a technologically upgraded machine. Now Gazebo can be developed in its variety of configurations. But it’s still not enough.
In terms of design and communication, colour is the element that, through enamel lacquering, gives an identity to the collection. A rich palette with a strong personality featuring bright, warm, cozy and lively colours—yellow, orange, blue, red, burgundy; and a range dedicated to tone-on-tone hues and sober pastel nuances— light blue, grey, pink, beige, white, black, dove, green.
To support this unique choice, Adriano Suman’s graphics uses typography the virtuoso way, by combining the serif font of the logotype with a sans-serif font for the numerical classification of individual products in a special ring binder that embraces the concept of colour harmony. Solid wood rods evoking bamboo are arranged in a pattern, a sequence of geometries held together by elegant and essential strips forming a “weave and weft” structure poised between the accuracy of form and the seduction of colour.
Gazebo is a comprehensive collection: chairs, seats, armchairs, sofas, coffee tables, consoles, tables, cupboards. For a few years, the collection was made in Brazil, in a manufacturing facility owned by the Giorgetti family and located in Ilhéus-Bahia, to be closer to the American markets.