Kitchen Appliances

In the course of time Stefano Giovannoni has designed a series of small electrical appliances for Alessi that are remarkably elegant and made from stainless steel: a kitchen scale, a juicer and a handheld vacuum cleaner (dustbuster), all dated to 2003, followed by a bathroom scale in 2005, and a toaster in 2006. Within the contemporary scenario where electrical appliances generally indulge in excessive formalism, this series, as its author explains to us, "offers nothing to design that is an end to itself"; even its "emotional appeal is very carefully measured out" and the objects are created "heeding to the rationale that's most suited to the materials".

In these small appliances Giovannoni joins classical austerity-toned down by the dazzle of the stainless steel-with cutting-edge technology. The toaster, for instance, has different types of heating modes, allowing the user to reheat slices of bread that have already been toasted, thaw bread, heat up sandwiches, croissants, focaccia bread, and so on.The designer's pursuit of an archetype is visible in the kitchen scale, a plain and simple surface that curves upwards, morphing into a display that you can turn on just by touching it. When it's turned off, it's a precious monolith that conceals its own function.The juicer is solid and professional; normally, this kind of kitchen appliance is very difficult to design because of the problems inherent to its purpose-problems that in this case were successfully solved. The dustbuster features an aerodynamic form; it's particularly quiet and can even vacuum liquids.