Riccardo Dalisi

Riccardo Dalisi (Potenza, 1931 – Naples, 2022) was an architect, designer and artist who held the chair of architectural design at the University of Naples Federico II until 2007 and directed its school of industrial design. In the 1970s he was among the founders of Global Tools with Ettore Sottsass, Alessandro Mendini and Andrea Branzi, at the centre of Italian radical architecture.

He won a Compasso d’Oro in 1981 for his research on the Neapolitan coffee maker made for Alessi, and the Compasso d’Oro alla carriera in 2014. Working in iron, copper and brass with an artisan’s hand, he moved without borders between architecture, design, sculpture and painting, from the children of Rione Traiano to the Rione Sanità and Scampia, and his work is held by the Centre Pompidou, the Frac Centre and the Madre in Naples.