Pio Manzù

Pio Manzù (1939-1969) was an Italian designer with a short but fruitful career that was mainly concentrated in the field of car design. Son of the famous Bergamo sculptor Giacomo Manzù, Pio trained as a designer at the legendary Hochschule für Gestaltung where his teacher was Tomás Maldonado, a great supporter of a technical-scientific conception of design. This imprinting also accompanied him in his activity with the Autonova research group, which he founded in 1965 together with Fritz Bob Busch and Michael Conrad, strongly focused on the industrial and technical aspects of car design. The prototypes he created with Autonova attracted the attention of Dante Giacosa, head of the FIAT Style Centre and creator of the timeless Nuova 500, who involved him in his activities. The first result of this collaboration was the City Taxi concept car, which was then followed by Manzù being asked to design the FIAT 127 (which went into production in 1971 and won the “Car of the Year” award in 1972), a car that would completely revolutionize the shape of the popular car, leaving a lasting mark throughout the 1970s and beyond. In the same years, Manzù also occasionally dedicated himself to the design of furniture, now partly reproduced by Alias, and home accessories, including the famous Cronotime clock (1968), reissued by Alessi. Having died at just thirty years of age in a tragic car accident, one of his best-known creations was only released posthumously: the celebrated Parentesi lamp for Flos (1971), based on some of his drawings sent by his widow to Achille Castiglioni and awarded the Compasso d’Oro in 1979.