From radical cave-dwelling beginnings to creating one of the world’s best-selling lamps, Michele De Lucchi has spent decades redefining design. Now, the Italian visionary brings his human-centric approach to yachting with AMDL Circle’s debut on the water...
Michele De Lucchi ranks among the world’s most influential architects and product designers. In the 1980s, he designed the Tolomeo lamp, a balletically flexible table light which can be flicked into any position.
It became the best-selling designer lamp of all time – one shines over the desk of 007’s boss M in Skyfall. In the 1990s, as design director at Olivetti, he styled the Echos 44 Color, a rose-gold laptop that pre-dated Apple’s colourful MacBooks. And more recently, his humanistic agency, AMDL Circle, designed its first yacht.
Yet De Lucchi’s artistic origin story began in a cave. In the 1970s, he was a bearded architectural radical and an enfant terrible of the design world. He founded Cavart, a revolutionary collective that rejected iconic monuments in favour of functional architecture. They constructed buildings from straw and organised art installations inside a Roman quarry, embracing minimalism, far from the shackles of possession and clutter.
Surprisingly, perhaps, De Lucchi was classically trained. He gained an architecture degree from the University of Florence, a living museum dedicated to art and architecture.
Florentine fashionistas Guccio Gucci and Salvatore Ferragamo took inspiration from the medieval institution, as did yacht designers Luca Dini and Francesco Paszkowski. De Lucchi’s design identity was forged in the clash of historical authenticity and the avant-garde.
An early work of a fine design made to enhance life was De Lucchi’s First Chair in 1983, examples of which grace design museums across the world. It combined a blue disc headrest with plastic balls for armrests, and looked as if it were custom-made for a Star Wars villain. Yet it paired rationalism with grace. It was mass produced, sold at a fair price and took over the galaxy.
The hundreds of products that De Lucchi would later design by hand would be both functional and fabulous. “Every intervention we undertake aims at harmonious integration,” he explains. “For us it’s the fundamental quality of architecture.”
Slowly but surely, the cave man became a wanted man. While he was teaching at the Politecnico di Milano, Italy’s leading design school, his architectural commissions became bigger and bigger. They included Olivetti’s industrial buildings in the 1980s and the Deutsche Bank HQ in Frankfurt in the 1990s. He found he needed more staff and spread the word that he was hiring within the student body.
"One of my professors knew Michele," recalls David Angeli, a young student at the time. "At my interview he only asked one question: 'Davide, can you use a chainsaw?'" Angeli was invited to De Lucchi's atelier near Lake Maggiore.
For two days a week, for two years, the young apprentice scythed logs into artistic forms using his mentor's petrol-powered cutting tool. “Michele said, ‘Using a chainsaw is like using a soft pencil to sketch: you can shape a big idea extremely quickly.’”
In 2004, Angeli became part of Atelier Michele De Lucchi, which had already grown into a circle of creative partners. AMDL Circle, as the agency became known, employed architects, interior designers, model makers and graphic designers. Davide Angeli became studio director in 2026.
Inspired by De Lucchi, AMDL Circle products bubbled with a new intensity. In 2015, the team designed the Pulcina espresso maker for Alessi.The object looks like laser-sliced silver discs piled up to resemble a chicken, with a rooster red handle. Coffee is poured from a triangle of stainless steel, akin to a beak. Most miraculously, the curvaceous design optimises the coffee-making process, distilling a creamily aromatic espresso.
“In each decade since the 1970s,” says Angeli, “Michele made pieces that are continually relevant.” In 2025, for instance, De Lucchi designed a funeral urn. Not just any receptacle for human ash, but a funky pot that celebrates a life well lived.
“The urn was something Michele wanted to design by himself, a personal thought about the end of life.” It was sculpted in his favourite material: wood. Possibly because trees represent sustainability and renewal through the seeds of life. It’s certainly a novel conversation starter.
Another noteworthy commission is the agency’s Vatican Mobile Post Office, which arose because the Holy See gets swamped with stamp collectors. Limited-edition stamps issued by the Vatican’s Philatelic Office, which go large on religious art, have the power to break eBay.
AMDL Circle’s brief was for a light-filled post office that could be assembled or disassembled within 48 hours. Their rounded solution mirrors the circular colonnade of St Peter’s Square, the world’s most famous piazza. Bronze, glass and timber conjure ageless poise.
The same noble materials grace the nearby Sistine Chapel, which was styled by Michelangelo, another Florentine. “In order to design, one must feel the passing of time and clearly perceive the historical moment to which one belongs,” says De Lucchi. “It is a matter of timing; what the Germans call Zeitgeist.”
The same stylish yet serviceable ethos is distilled in AMDL Circle’s forthcoming interiors project, the brand new Azimut Magellano 27 model, which launches this year. Imagine a space-age trawler designed by an artist from the Uffizi. Minimalist furniture can be rearranged to maximise space.
The interior is all wood – again channelling De Lucchi’s chainsaw spirit – where colours, patinas and textures lend a characterful feel. The yacht replaces the desire to own a showy toy with the belief that a purposeful design will stand the test of time – lessons learned in De Lucchi’s cave days.
The new Magellano can cross the Atlantic in fuel efficient mode, then race to the beach at 21 knots. It can fit five cabins into a 27-metre frame, then host a party for 40 on its top deck and fold-out swim platform. It is form and function combined in a classic De Lucchi package.
First published in the May 2025 issue of BOAT International. Get this magazine sent straight to your door, or subscribe and never miss an issue.