Alessi • MENHIR
Espresso coffee maker
18/10 stainless steel. Thermoplastic resin handle. Magnetic steel boiler. Also suitable for induction cooking. Designed by Michael Anastassiades. Alessi edition.
Designed by Michael Anastassiades, Menhir espresso coffee maker has an absolute line. The name Menhir immediately brings to mind the power of a form with great emblematic presence: “long stones” carefully positioned in the landscape, probably associated with religious ceremonies or other rituals, the menhirs inspired this iconic tool, used for one of the most important modern daily rituals; that of making coffee.
Dedicated to those who appreciate exquisite manufacture: a real workshop gem.
Michael Anastassiades is a Cypriot-born, London-based designer whose practice encompasses product, spatial interventions and experimental works, often transcending the distinctions between different fields of creativity. Michael Anastassiades founded his studio in London in 1994. He trained as a civil engineer at London’s Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine before taking a masters degree in industrial design at the Royal College of Art.
Anastassiades’ practice contemplates both industrial production and artisan techniques. In doing so, it expands into a vivid, nuanced balance between improvisation and structure, control and intuition. With a career spanning more than 20 years, Anastassiades has conceived lights, furniture and objects characterised by a poetic yet rigorous interpretation of technology, materials and functions.
The Michael Anastassiades Studio has collaborated with various manufacturers, including Flos, B&B Italia, Herman Miller, Cassina and Molteni. His work is featured in permanent collections at the Museum Of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, among others. Anastassiades is a Royal Designer for Industry at the Royal Society of Arts. He is involved in educational programmes at international institutions such as Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London and ECAL, Lausanne.
Making the ordinary extraordinary. Creating everyday objects that are interesting and desirable, where aesthetics, functionality and quality find their balance in a cultural and emotional dimension that charms and surprises.
Since 1921, the year in which the firm was established, most Alessi objects have been created via cold processing of the metals and, even today, are still made in Italy by highly skilled craftsmen at the factory in Crusinallo, Omegna.
In recent decades, Alessi has also included many other materials in its catalogue, such as wood, porcelain, glass, plastic, etc. Strict quality standards are applied to each of them, with constant mediation between the technological complexity of industrial production and the attention to details typical of craftsmanship.
Alessi is not a production industry in the traditional sense, but a sort of laboratory of industrial research into applied arts. Open to change and to international development, the company is also deeply rooted in tradition and in the cultural background of its territory: Alessi continues to be synonymous with artisan products made with the help of machinery.
Since its establishment, Alessi has gradually evolved, becoming a leading exponent of the “Factories of Italian design”, capable of mediating between the most interesting expressions of international creativity and the public, society and the market. Its mission is to translate these creative expressions into real objects capable of fulfilling dreams and satisfying the public’s desires.
