With Ornamentum, De Castelli returns to the essence of decoration, underlining the deliberate slowness of the manual gesture: aligning notions of chemistry, mechanics and art history to restore the author’s hand to the engraving technique. After Glyphé and Biomorphic, two distinct explorations of the technique of forging and the organic deformation of matter, this year the research combines design and decoration based on experimentation.
Combining industrial process and high craftsmanship, De Castelli once again fuses strategic vision and creativity: the result is a collection of works of art in copper and brass that come to life through the strength of the project and demonstrate the versatility of this technique.
Ornamentum was presented in the exhibition space at the Salone del Mobile 2024 and with a new setup for the Milan Design Week, inside the De Castelli Gallery in Milan, the company’s showroom in the city.
The research begins in the distant past, with the indirect aquatint engraving technique and the work of 16th century Swiss goldsmiths, and is applied via a dialogue with the specialized, state-of-the-art expertise of the company. The material is not engraved mechanically but through an etching process on the metal: this erosion transforms the metal, by as little as a millimeter, into works of art that reveal the poetic nature of the technique.
The 31 designers involved in creating a personal interpretation have restored excitement and sensation of a tactile, perceptual experience to the flatness of the slab: lettering, op-art and organic storytelling become a constellation of eclectic and multi-form marks making up 31 different artworks that breathe life into copper and brass.
As part of the 2026 edition of CombinAzioni Festival, De Castelli hosted two events that transformed its corporate spaces into places for listening, dialogue and participation.
