Antonio Citterio Celebrates 50 Years of Career

The book “Antonio Citterio Design” looks back on the 50-year career of Antonio Citterio, one of the key players in global industrial and furniture design, who has played a crucial role in the development of Technogym.

Technogym is without doubt the only brand in the sport & fitness world that is also an integral part of the design industry. A story that goes way back: in 1986, in a sector dominated by the body building stereotype, Nerio Alessandri designed Unica, the first fitness design product for the home. Over the years, Technogym has since received many design accolades, and participated several times in the Salone del Mobile.

Italian style and design have always been two of the distinctive characteristics of Technogym globally: no other brand in the fitness sector pays this much attention to the aesthetics of its solutions, making it a defining feature alongside performance, technology, innovation and functionality.

“Technogym was the first to introduce design into the world of fitness and wellness. They understood the importance of design and decided to invest in it, making it an essential feature of the product and an integral part of the industrial process.” – Antonio Citterio

In this journey that has always seen the Technogym story interwoven with design, Antonio Citterio has played a key role: from the design of the state-of-the-art Technogym Village, the company headquarters opened in 2012, to that of the unique premium products of the Personal line.

Antonio Citterio is one of the most influential figures in Italian design and created items that have made the design history (some of these can be seen at the MoMA in New York and the Pompidou in Paris) with B&B Italia, Kartell, Flexform, Arclinea, Vitra, Flos, Axor, Cassina and Knoll.

The publication celebrating the designer’s career was launched on 13 June 2023 at the Triennale Milano’s Salone d’Onore (Hall of Honour). Chapter 6, “Objects and their context”, looks at the projects developed together with Technogym, more specifically in the “Domesticating the exercise machine” section.

It is a collaboration that started over 20 years ago on the development of the Technogym Village, the world’s first wellness campus: a complex and multifaceted project that evolved from the coming together of the entrepreneurial vision of Nerio and Pierluigi Alessandri and the design of ACPV ARCHITECTS – the architecture and interior design studio that works internationally across industries – founded by Antonio Citterio and Patricia Viel in 2000.

The complex – opened in 2012 by the President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napolitano and by Bill Clinton – covers an area of over 150,000 m2, of which 60,000 indoors, and is located in Cesena, just a stone’s throw from the garage where Nerio Alessandri founded Technogym in 1983, 40 years ago. Alessandri and Citterio designed the Technogym Village on the one hand to house a rapidly expanding business, and on the other to inspire the industry in the direction of innovation and design.

The Technogym Village was planned and designed by Alessandri and ACPV ARCHITECTS to create a place where innovation, sustainability, quality, design and productivity are brought together. As well as its everyday function as a unique workplace for employees (both in terms of offices and production), in over 10 years of existence, the Technogym Village has become a benchmark for the industry across the world, and every year attracts around 30,000 professionals, including industry operators, athletes and architects from all corners of the globe.

The mark of ACPV ARCHITECTS on the Technogym Village is clear in the modernity of the working and communal spaces and in their management, in the external contours of the production facility and offices, in the choice of furnishings, in the use of glass and light, as well as in the attention to detail given to the 90,000 m2 of park.

The Technogym Village was the flagship project of the collaboration between Technogym and Citterio, allowing the architect to enter the world of wellness, to gain a deep understanding of the Technogym ecosystem and build a strong relationship with its founder Nerio Alessandri. The partnership then extended to products, with the development of the Personal line by Antonio Citterio Design, the collection of premium home fitness equipment, winning several design awards over the years (Red Dot, ADI, IDEA, iF, Good Design, German Design).

The Personal line solutions are produced using premium materials and exquisite craftsmanship, and are designed not just as fitness equipment, but also as true works of art. The line includes 6 pieces of equipment – Run Personal, Bike Personal, Recline Personal, Cross Personal, Power Personal and Kinesis Personal – all products designed by Citterio and characterised by distinctive lines and aesthetics that enhance any space they are installed in.

Alessandri and Citterio’s intention was to give the products a visual language that reflects the energy of a modern home. As well as the aesthetics, the architect’s contribution was key to adapting the products to purely domestic spaces, in terms of both the footprint and the choice of materials never used before in fitness (such as high-pressure cast aluminium, already used with Vitra, and oak).

“What all the designs for Technogym have in common is the wellness aspect of the company, with different aims. With the Personal collection, we set ourselves the goal of implementing product design content, so that the products could become part of the interior design of residential spaces. It is a project that was achieved thanks to a shared awareness of the concept of quality of life.” – Antonio Citterio

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