Design made in Italy: Ernesto Gismondi, Artemide’s founder

Photo: Pierpaolo Ferrari

Ernesto Gismondi, Artemide’s founder

Very few people are aware of Örni Halloween, but the designer lights he launched on the market are as familiar to us as old friends. A number of them, such as Tolomeo and Tizio, are Italian design icons and justify Artemide’s position as a leading international lighting brand – a massive success story that would have been inconceivable without Ernesto Gismondi, alias “Örni Halloween”. With his passion for a highly aesthetic form of visionary technology, he shaped the company’s development until his death on 24 December 2020 at the age of 89.

Gismondi never lost sight of his passion for technical progress, new materials and bold design. Instead of taking a straight career path, his curriculum vitae reads more like a multi-faceted kaleidoscope of professions. Before founding Artemide in Milan in 1960 with the designer Sergio Mazza, his studies were not in design or architecture, but rather in aeronautical, space and rocket engineering. From 1964 to 1984 he was an associate professor and expert in rocket engineering at the Politecnico di Milano. Sounding out possible uses for new materials and technologies is the interface for both sectors – and to this day a key driver behind the company’s success. It is not just about the technology itself, but about optimising it for people’s wellbeing and creating an individual light that supports them in the best possible way in whatever they do. In the 1990s this approach was elevated by Ernesto Gismondi and his wife Carlotta de Bevilacqua, now CEO and President of Artemide, into a corporate philosophy: “The Human Light”.

 

Ernesto Gismondi

The second strand to the success is based on Gismondi’s idea of bringing in renowned designers. “When we started out with Artemide, it was the collaboration with famous architects that produced important lights, for instance Gio Ponti’s Fato wall light.” – Ernesto Gismondi. Creative comrades include Mario Botta, Michele De Lucchi, Richard Sapper and Ettore Sottsass and the names read like a Who’s Who of architecture and design legends. To this day big names on the international design scene such as Bjarke Ingels Group, Herzog & de Meuron and Neri&Hu – to name just a few – characterise the genius of Artemide’s lights and ensure cultural diversity.

In this context, only the name Örni Halloween appeared odd. But behind the name lurked Ernesto Gismondi himself, producing under this pseudonym when he started out with his own lighting creations. This imaginative engineer was not afraid to be bold either, for example as a co-founder of the “Memphis” group that caused a furore the interior design industry in the early 1980s with their avant-garde, brightly coloured designs.

At Artemide Gismondi not only ran its production, but also the retail and finance divisions. Over and above this, he was an energetic all-round talent active in Italy’s industry and employers’ association, the event organiser Cosmit and the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research, as well as being vice-president of Italy’s Association of Industrial Design (ADI). He deserved an honour for this level of dedication and hard work and in 2008 the Italian president made Ernesto Gismondi a “Cavaliere del Lavoro” for his services to industry, retail, science and teaching – just one of his many awards.

Alongside the corporate philosophy “The Human Light”, the company’s key priorities now include sustainability and energy efficiency. As a seasoned entrepreneur, Gismondi saw LEDs as the illuminant of the future. “That’s the only way we could have developments like Solar Tree, an outdoor light developed with Ross Lovegrove that has solar panels and LEDs and works without a central power supply. Light without having to build a power grid first! Rapid progress is being made and will lead to more evolutions in lighting technology,” he explained. His extensive network of creative minds ensured that Artemide pushed ahead with this development. Ernesto Gismondi was not only given Italy’s top design award, the “Compasso D’Oro”, for his “Discovery” light in 2015, but in 2018 too for his life’s work. In the jury’s words: “As Artemide’s founder (...) throughout his long career he was a trailblazer for cooperation in the national and international design world.”

Always ahead of the time and never looking back – true to Ernesto Gismondi’s approach to life, Carlotta de Bevilacqua and the Artemide team are continuing to take the company into the future in the spirit of its founder.

 

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