Riccardo Dalisi was born in Potenza in 1931, but has lived in Naples from earliest childhood. He is an architect, designer, painter, sculptor, poet. He likes to call himself a contamination, contaminated, contaminating. His inexhaustible creativity is summed up in the motto “Designing without thinking” – as he says – was inspired by Wittgenstein and means “thinking freely with the body”, “feeling the emotions flow in the solar plexus.” It has been called an atypical designer because he doesn’t just design objects, he is able to animate them and makes them protagonists of figurative imaginative fables. “Totocchio “, born from the union between Toto and Pinocchio, is his hero in the form of a coffeepot that always takes on new identities. His Lucan food memories are linked to the fresh homemade pasta: the ” strascnar” (dragged) and ” recchietell ” (orecchiette), but also to large loaves of bread you could slice only with a big knife putting them on the shoulder. The foods that he now love the most are coffee – drinking “bitter with so much sugar” – chocolate – which would build homes – and pasta in all forms, especially the spaghetti that really inspire him because they are so elastic they are able to dance.

Interview by: Helga Sanità
Video and editing by: Davide Mancini
Subtitles by: Giulia Origlia, Helga Sanità and Roberta Romanelli
Document by: Giulia Origlia and Fabiola Petrenga
MedEatResearch – Center of Social Research on the Mediterranean Diet of the University of Naples Suor Orsola Benincasa, head by Marino Niola and Elisabetta Moro
Realized: 08-05-2015
Riccardo Dalisi

Riccardo Dalisi

Date of birth: 01-05-1931
City: Potenza
Education: University
Profession: Architect, designer and artist
Language: Italian

Video table of contents

- 00:09 The lucan food of memory: the "strascnar","recchietell" and the large loaves
- 02:44 Capellini with broth
- 03:53 Designing without thinking
- 07:42 The Golden Compass Prize for the neapolitan coffee machines
- 09:08 Totocchio
- 10:47 Password: experiment
- 12:32 Mediterrean: panelli, breads, panellini, salsa and corn
- 13:06 Sailing pasta: wet with sauce and cheese
- 15:10 The “cassata cake”... cancel the memory of the previous piece of pie and avoid to take some more
- 16:40 Pizza: container and content
- 17:41 The spaghetti dance and the figurative elasticity of pasta

Geographic information

Country: IT
Region: Campania
City: Napoli
District: NA
Altitude: 17 m s. l . m.

Links and attachements
References

Bibliography
Riccardo, Dalisi, L’Architettura della imprevedibilità, 1970
Riccardo Dalisi, La caffettiera di Pulcinella, 1987
Riccardo Dalisi, Progettare senza pensare, Electa, Napoli, 1999
Riccardo Dalisi, Design ultrapoverissimo, 2004
Riccardo Dalisi, Decrescita. Architettura della nuova innocenza, 2009
Sitography:
www.riccardodalisi.com