Does anyone have any information relating to a series of stylised animal shaped ornaments made from clear lucite?
They are flat and have simple shapes with a hole drilled through for the eye.
I would like to know:
Who was the designer for Guzzini?
What animal shapes were made in that series?
Does anyone have a picture or pictures of the animals in the series?
Is there any book or magazine or website that has information on these objects?
Were the items all a particular thickness?
What years were these items manufactured?
I have written to Guzzini a few times and never received a response - have also searched the web and found next to nothing.
Someone must know about these items and is there a terms to describe them? Ornaments? What?
I wonder if...
you refer to an acrylic version that has been made of the animal puzzles that Enzo Mari did for Danese.
If you go to the Danese website and you go further to PRODUCTS and subsequently to collection you will see them shown in the original oak wood version.
If I remember well they also existed at one point in a hard foamed plastic material.
Good luck in your search
http://www.danesemilano.com/
Thank you so very much...
Thank you so very much "Koen" - I think you are on-the-money and the lucite Guzzini animals are based upon the Enzo Mari designs you discussed.
I do hope we can find out more information about the Guzzini series - Design Addict Forum has delivered knowledgeable responses. I am sure further knowledge and pictures are out there!
If anyone has any pictures of information regarding the Guzzini lucite animal series you can email it directly to me on:
pseudoquasi@gmail.com
"azurechicken" - could you please contact me on the email address above - I'd love a picture of your camel and measurements and if there is a sticker on the figurine?
Please add information to this topic if you have anything you may feel points me in the right direction.
I really appreciate this opportunity to be able to ask for assistance on the Design Addict Forum.
Lucite &/or Clear Acrylic or Perspex
I am guessing - trying to find out what animals are in the Guzzini series - would love to know if anyone has the answer. I tried to order the Morelli boook on Guzzini from Amazon but it is out of stock - if anyone has it and can look in it to see if the animal ornaments are mentioned I'd appreciate it.
I have seen a couple of the series and they intrigue me. I understand there is a kangaroo and that was of interest - why did an Italian company produce a kangaroo? Now if the Mari series are what they are based upon then it is understandable.
I read in some other post on here that the thrill is in the chase - totally agree - but am also surprised that there is so little information on something I imagine would have been mass produced.
It also disappoints me that a company like Guzzini would not bother to reply to correspondence - I have even written to them in Italian - but not a peep!
I know the out there someone has this information and a set of these animal figures sitting on a shelf or in a box.
I suspect people would have given them to children over the years and they were used as toys - sometimes given to dogs to play with or tossed out in the rubbish or given to Oxfam, St Vincent de Paul or other charities to sell off?
If Koen is on the right path with his theory that they were based on the Mari series then a camel would be one of the figures - and yes, a Bactrian (two humped camel) is likely.
I hope you find the camel so I can see what it looks like - tell me more about the American brand you mentioned.
A Picture Paints a Thousand Words...
I hope this hyperlink works:
http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/3418074
Search Guzzini in Italian
I have found this search engine to find Guzzini items - but it is in Italian - maybe I am getting warmer and closer to the information?
Any Italian speakers who can search for me would be appreciated!
http://www.fimag.it/pages/proFind.asp
Team Guizzini...
Is Team Guzzini part of the bigger Guzzini manufacturing empire?
I think that the story is quite simple. This kind of large acrylic pieces (Lucite,Plexiglass,Acrylite, Perspex etc. are all brandnames for a thermoplastic called Polymetylmetacrylate, commonly called acrylic but the right acromym is PMMA) can not be injection moulded, they are cut in thick Acrylic sheet material, a material that is both available as cast sheets and as extruded sheets. In this case it is clearly cast. By looking at some details like the transition between the giraf's neck and it's back, it seems to be done with a regular straight mill-bit.
Guzzine is first and formost an injection moulder and I suspect that by calling it Team Guzzini they wanted to acknowledge that it was not produced by themselves but by a subcontractor.
The shapes are not the same as the Enzo Mari puzzles (he had to compromise here an there on the proper anatomic shapes to make all the animals fit together...and he did not do a rinho) but they are clearly inspired by them.
My guess is that a small workshop that made these things by hand (the eyes are obviously machines and not finished afterwards) offered the distribution of these pieces to Guzzini and Guzzini being one of the largest manufacturers at the time of injection moulded acrylic housewares considered it a good combination. It probably was. Sold together with the Guzzini line it certainly pulled the rest of the line toward this "thick/handmade/modern/quality" look.
The pieces have been published widely, not as much for there own sake, but as a "clear" ornament in interiors. I am sure that going through a late sixties/early seventies "Domus" or "Abitare" would produce dozens of pictures in which these animals are used as decoration.
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