Achille Castiglioni was born in Milan in 1918, he started work as an architect and designer with his brothers Livio and Pier Giacomo in 1938. One of the great masters of Italian design, he was a founding member of ADI in the fifties. The long list of awards he has received include eight Compassi d'Oro. His activity as a designer is an unmistakable blend of simplicity, irony and fun and its shows his close interest in the way objects are used, in the potential offered by technology and in the use of new materials. He died in 2002.