in The afternoon, it will be finally so far: Alberto Meda for the first time can take a look at the product he has designed. If he is nervous? No, says Meda and laughs. “Excited, I’m not. Curious but, even if it’s just a radiator.“

Peter-Philipp Schmitt

editor in the Department “Germany and the world”.

F. A. Z.

When you think about it, it goes this afternoon not only to you, but to Medas second heating element with the name Step-by-Step. For his first, the Designer was awarded with the highest honor: The radiator is Origami got, among other things, in June, the Compasso d’oro, the oldest and most prestigious industrial design prize in the world. Origami is not only a source of heat, he is also a folding screen that can stand on the wall and in the middle of the room. Anyone who sees the sliding and folding room dividers for the first Time, will certainly not be thinking of a radiator. No wonder, then, that the Meda has received the prestigious design award, for the sixth Time already for one of his designs.

For Italian radiator manufacturer Tubes, however, it was a new experience, although the company from the small town of Resana, in the province of Trevisio in the Veneto region, has for 15 years on the topic of Design. But it was only Alberto Meda gave Cristiano Crosetta, CEO of Tubes, the satisfaction of which he, as Crosetta says, had to wait so long.

Filigree radiators

so Now there is a second radiator from the pen of Alberto Medas. What he looks like? Meda reaches for a pen and paper and draw a few small curved arches. Then it occurs to him that he has somewhere in his Milan Studio, a model of the Step-by-Step. The simplified Image is made of polystyrene and has six slats, which Nestle closely to each other. The narrow modules are formed of elliptical, pleated elements, which are attached to a wall and to the left or to the right can be. From the wall on the basis of the radiator made of metal, has only a depth of about eight centimeters. “The slim Ribs provide high energy efficiency with minimal space,” says Alberto Meda.

Just the thick Ribs of a conventional radiator would have displeased him. “You look much too aggressive.” He has therefore developed modules, which look like airplane Propeller: In their midst, where the Internal circulating air is heated, you are ventricose, at the edges flattened. On the drawing, he has for the manufacturer of Tubes made, “modulating elettrici di riscaldamento”, including “On” for Alberto Meda. Only after such drawings, the radiator was produced, a prototype, has not seen the designer. He trusted to the skill of the manufacturer who has, for some years, especially two creative Directors of rank and name: the Milan-based Designer couple, Ludovica and Roberto Palomba.

Alberto Meda self is one of the best-known designers of Italy. He has a very unusual background. Unlike many colleagues of his Generation, Meda was born in 1945 in Tremezzina in the province of Como in Lombardy, he has not studied architecture, but in mechanical engineering at the Polytechnic in Milan. He began his career in 1973 as an engineer in plastic specialized manufacturers cartel, which was founded by Giulio Castelli in 1949. For six years, Meda stayed with the producer. “The last time I had as a technical Director, a staff of 100. And that is exactly what I wanted,“ says Meda. So he quit and went 40 years ago independently.