What is Castiglioni’s way of designing?
You should start to design an object thinking about what you should not do, in order to find then what you should do. Delete, delete, delete and at the end find the “core aspect of the design”; sometimes it is determined by the relationship with the manufacturer, which leads you to choose a non-preselected material at the end of the project. My brothers and I didn’t want to be influenced by the drawing, while designing; we aimed to the minimal design according to the functionality that the object should have. We wanted to reach the point where “you could not do less”.
 
Do you consider yourself a rebel in the field of Architecture?
I have always desired to do the opposite, not because I have an anarchic behaviour. But because I think that the fundamental basis of design consists in thinking the opposite. Maybe that is why people find a youth aspect in my design, I don’t know.
 
Delete, simplify in order to find the essential. For instance?
One of the characteristics of Castiglioni’s design is not to follow prejudgements, to be free to design what is right even if it is difficult to say what is right.
For instance, look at this lamp, the Luminator lamp. We think that we could not do less: it’s a tube with three legs and a bulb on the top. This essentiality makes the product and establishes the relationship between the designers and the end-user.
We, the Castiglioni brothers, often make fun of ourselves.
I believe is that objects should stay with you.
The Arco lamp was the result of the idea to change the point of light in the house. The main feature of its design is the position of the point of light on the ceiling, so it was necessary to build a lamp with a bracket long enough to reach it. The minimal shape could be made only through an aluminium sheet with a very small U-shaped section starting from the basis of the source of light. On the other hand street-lamps once were made in that way, with a tube and a source of light.
The added value of the Arco lamp consists in having brought into the houses a lamp you can move according to the position of the furniture. What is commonly considered the main drawback of Architecture? The fact that it imposes a situation. Therefore we wanted to allow people to move the light. The base should be heavy and we decided to make it of marble, a beautiful material that was not chosen in order to add luxury to the lamp, but in order to make it movable. The base should also not be too expensive, it should be easily produced by industrial manufacturing process. It could have been made of reinforced concrete or of another material that should have been finished. On the contrary, marble today is easy to process, so a marble base still cost less than any other finished material. The opposite of whatever anyone could imagine.     
Many people say that an object should be amusing: this is another wrong prejudgement. Objects should not be amusing, they should be useful and functional. If it is actually amusing or contains features that remind you of a pleasant memory, this could give to it an additional value, but it should not be the main component of its design! Its accurately defined function should be the fundamental component of design; the function of a lamp consists in lighting up and so the source of light is the relevant aspect. Anyway, even how to produce the source of light should not be chosen at first, but at the end of the design after an accurate examination of different possible solutions. 
 
What is the origin of your interest in lighting devices?
My brothers and I have always been interested in lighting devices, but I don’t know actually why. This interest probably originates from different types of source of light: fluorescent, glow-lamp, candles; we have always been interested in artificial light, each one of us for his personal research. The first thing to do is to analyse the object-lamp that lights up and use it in the correct way, not in the wrong one such as here at the Castle in Milan.  
 
Soon after the War you became professionally very active. Which is the event you have attended that you remember with most pleasure?
An important event was the 13th Mostra della Radio (Radio Exhibition, ndr), which suspended during the War. Before the War it took place at the Permanente Museum in Milan, afterwards at the Triennale. In occasion of the reconstruction of part of the Triennale, we had the chance to take part to the exhibition’s organizing committee.
It has been a very important event especially for my elder brother who could get in touch with the Brionvega company and began to work with them to the production of many devices designed, among others, by Zanuso. 
Architecture was still stopped dead soon after the War; that’s why we approached the electric and acoustic devices manufacture.
We were just the designers of those devices and the co-operation between technicians, designers and young manufacturers was very stimulating for us. It was also a ‘physical’ work, Pier Giacomo and I worked with our own hands, while Livio was a technician. 

Livio, the eldest brother, took his own way, while you and Pier Giacomo have continued to work together until his death...
We worked together since Livio decided to work as a consultant for Brionvega. In fact he was actually a technician, while Pier Giacomo and I have always worked in the field of design, and architecture.
When Pier Giacomo died, it was very difficult for me, I was used to work with him, and Livio. I found myself alone. It was quite difficult to overcome his loss and I isolated myself for one or two years.
I strongly respected him and he respected me too; I still feel his presence, we were really very close. Dino Buzzati told we were two bodies with a single mind.
 
Do you agree in defining you and your brothers designers, rather than architects?
At the end of the War the building industry was in deep recession, and my brothers and I were available, with our passion for industrial design for mass-production. We detached from architecture, even if we designed the Professional schools in Vimercate, Saint Gabriele Church, the headquarters of the Chamber of Commerce and the Permanente Museum in Milan...

You have been designing successfully since many years, you are one of the forefathers of Italian Design, and your products are displayed in the most important museums around the world. In the light of these facts, how do you value your experience?
Now I can tell you that experience doesn’t give you certainty or confidence, on the contrary it may increase the chances of making mistakes. It is better to humbly start from scratch each time, in order to avoid that experience turns into slyness.
 
What is your judgement on Italian Design nowadays?  
Designers do not try to clean up the objects, which become overloaded with connotations, in addition to their pure function.

What is your advice to young people who would like to become designers? 
I tell to young people interested in industrial design that if they are not genuinely curios, they should give up. If they are not interested in the others, in what they do and how they act, design is not the right job for them. 
 
What should they be curious about?
What they should look at?
The street, cinema, television: that is where you learn to observe critically the obvious acts, the conformist behaviour, the trivial shape of objects. And for what reason? In order to understand that it is possible to do things, to act, in a different way.

Any more suggestions?
I would tell them not to believe they are the creators of the world... that is wrong.
I would suggest them to get rid of the obsessive frameworks of cataloguing everything, of judging everything based on trends. Young generations should also abandon the idea of the artist’s wonderful isolation. 
A good design project never originates from the ambition to leave one’s own mark, but from one’s willingness to build a relationship with the unknown end-user. Research is a major aspect of the design process. 
 
Have you ever sacrificed your loved ones to your work?
My family sometimes gets angry with me because my passion for design absorbs me too much. I should spend more time with them, but sometimes I am just too busy.