By Gabriella Lombardo Giassetti
Celebrated as the “Rock Star ok Kitchen Design” in the United States, Mick De Giulio has been creating kitchens for distinctive residences throughout the USA and abroad for over 40 years. In addition to residential kitchen design, his body of work includes commercial projects and product design for the best companies. He lives and works in Chicago and he was the guest star of SieMatic during the Milano Design Week. De Giulio collaborates with SieMatic to design and develop “BeauxArts” for the SieMatic kitchens and style collection Classic.
Mr. De Giulio, what is your impression about Milano Design Week?
I come to the MDW for many years, the first time was probably in the late ’80s when there was still the old Fiera and there is nothing that inspires me most of what happens in Milan during this week. Sometimes I go out alone just to get inspired and put feeling into my work.
What kind of feeling do you want to communicate with your works?
I would like to communicate a unique feeling: feelings of warmth, comfort and cleanliness and something that people have never seen before in order to transmit a new way of thinking.
What is style and what is style into a kitchen?
In interior design, style is expression. For that reason, style is not the same for everyone. Finding one’s style is a journey which takes exploration and evolves over time.The kitchen has become the center of the home for more and more people. They want to express their personal tastes and emotion. People are drawn to that kitchen, and they may not know why. The kitchen sings. It is my job to write the music. I may call myself a kitchen designer but what I really do is orchestrate and conduct the dreaming process.
What is so special about SieMatic BeauxArts?
SieMatic BeauxArts offers all the possibilities of functional kitchen design but with a twist. It’s both modern and classic, and combines proportions, materials, and vocabularies. The clean and simple lines allow the mixing and like personal style, the possibilities become limitless. I call it the white shirt in one’s wardrobe. It can be informal or you can dress it up. The important part is that it doesn’t ever need to be the same. The goal is to be able to design a kitchen for our client that is completely individual.
You’ll be signing copies of your new book, KITCHEN after the presentation. Can you tell us a bit about it?
KITCHEN is my second book; it was just released in November by Pointed Leaf Press. We photographed nine new projects for the book – each, very different in terms of location and lifestyle – from a beachfront home in Florida to a bachelor’s penthouse overlooking The Strip in Las Vegas. One of my favorites is the project that opens the book – a BeauxArts kitchen that I designed for a 200+ year old palazzo in Southern Italy.
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