Interview with Mario Mazzer

I founded my company in 1980 near Venice. Today it consists of several architects, designers and engineers and we carry out projects in product design, interior design, architecture and urban planning. It is a dynamic place where the continuous exchange between different fields feeds new ideas.

Design is an instrument that must be useful to its time.

The works I like designing the most are always the ones I’m working on. Maybe because they represent the way I am in that time.

My favourite is Rita chair I’ve designed for Zanotta and with which I’ve won one of my first design awards.

The first thing I designed for a company was Clino table for Magis in 1984, the perfect combination of function, form and movement.

Wood, because it is a living material.

In the early morning, when office is quiet and half of my mind is still dreamy.

When I design I focus on how a design works, it has to be appropriate and reflects the way it’s made.

Happiness

I'm happy to share them with the world and curious to know how they will be perceived by their users.

Designers are artisans of the aesthetics that, with love and dedication, try to give answers with concrete solutions. Sometimes the market likes these solutions so they become a success and sometimes that does not happen.

I ask myself these questions: Does it improve the quality of life? Is it honest?

Designers have the responsibility to understand how the society evolves, to understand its needs and to give solutions.

14.Very interesting question for the time we are living. Covid-19 has accelerated phenomena that were already underway towards a new domestic nomadism.
Design will have to give answers to new needs as home working, rethinking of fluidity, importance of outdoor spaces.

It was last year at Salone del Mobile in Milan.

Sometimes the necessities of architecture inspire me to develop design projects. Other times inspiration can be triggered by everything that can strike my chord as nature, art, food, a book,…

I think my design is very influenced by the function-form relation but I find very important also the psychological aspect that a product transfer to its user.

I’ve been very lucky to study and grow professionally in Milan during the magic time of Italian Design. I’ve studied and worked with designers and architects who have made the history of Design in the world like Achille Castiglioni and Marco Zanuso.

19.With companies I work in two ways. Sometimes they have a specific need and they call me to develop a project according to the briefing. Other times I work on a product that I think may be interesting for them and I propose it.

I think companies and designers need to share same goals.

My design is thought, weighted through drawings and then corrected and improved through prototyping.

An Art Decò table lamp I found in a market in New York, a Cini Boeri lamp by Tronconi, Rita chair I designed for Zanotta, Atollo lamp designed by Vico Magistretti and Ola dining table I’ve designed for Martex.

When I am not travelling I arrive at the office at 7 am because there is still no one so I can concentrate and think serenely. From 9 am till 9 pm I have continuous checks with my collaborators. Is it clear that I love this damn job?

24.The only advice I feel to give to young designers is to think of what the purpose of a designer is. Today I see a lot of attention to the form and less to the meaning. Design is a tool that improves the quality of life and where aesthetics has functional roots.

Being free to think is definitely the positive aspect. The negative is that sometimes designers are bound by the mechanisms of marketing.

Design functional products able of moving.

The most important skill is the same for every job: curiosity.

28.Pencil and crayons to make sketches; cutter, cardboards and styrofoam to make the first handmade maquettes; 3ds Max for 3D modeling.

There’s no way, that is way you have to do this job only if you love it.

The product design process, from the concept phase to the commercialization of the product, is quiet long although in the past was even longer. Nowadays, with 3D modeling, the step from design to industrial production is very quick as the mathematical model for the mold is provided by us and sometimes the time for meditation that should be made on prototypes is even too quick.

Where I get my inspiration from.

The one I begun more than 30 years ago.

33.In product design our clients are the most important design companies as Minotti, Zanotta, Bonaldo,…
In architecture our clients are very different, sometimes young couples who want me to design their first house, sometimes entrepreneurs who ask me to design their new headquarters.

34.I enjoy every design work because it allows me to express my self.

In product design we are working on some projects that should give concrete solutions to everyday life changed by Covid19.

Sometimes as a team sometimes by myself.

We have many work-in-progress both in design and architecture.

They can call me at the office, write me an email or through my Instagram page.

I think we have covered every important topic, thank you!