In/Architettura 2020 Awards: Umberto Riva
In / Arch Lombardia organized and chaired the territorial edition of the Award, extending it also to Emilia Romagna, with the prestigious jury composed of: Renzo Bassani (Inarch Lombardia), Marco Biraghi (Polytechnic of Milan), Enzo Cantoni (Varese Architects Order), Regina De Albertis (President of ANCE Giovani), Marco Dettori (President of Assimpredilance), Gioia Gattamorta (Architect), Pierluigi Nicolin (Lotus Director), Franco Raggi (Order of Architects of Milan) and Severino Salvemini (UNI Bocconi).
Il Premio alla Carriera della Lombardia viene assegnato a Umberto Riva per la portata di una ricerca sviluppata negli ultimi 60 anni sull’architettura moderna.
Umberto Riva
A master of lighting, Umberto Riva was born in Milan in 1928 and has worked in design since 1960. Having studied with Carlo Scarpa, Riva pursued his own personal research process via the most widely differing disciplines, from urban spaces to buildings, landscape to interiors, outfitting to the design of lamps and furniture. Considered an out-of-the-ordinary architect, Riva has retained an artisan dimension in architecture and design work. His designs are “born drawn”, pencil sketches of a pure and poetic research.
Umberto Riva was born in Milan in 1928 and has worked on design projects since the sixties. Having studied with Carlo Scarpa, he pursued his own personal research, exploring the most diverse disciplines, from urban spaces to buildings, from landscaping to interiors, from installations to product design. Riva, an outstanding architect, has always dreamed of being a painter. His works, which portray abstract subjects and collages of lines, spaces and fields of colour, are a testimony of his aesthetic research. In 2017 Tacchini reissued a table lamp designed by Umberto Riva under the name E63; it features simple, clear-cut lines that seemingly give light a solid form. The three rugs Narciso, Nello Spazio and Rituale instead are inspired by Riva’s paintings, they are the fruit of a long and complex working process, a perfect blend of art, craftsmanship and design.
In 2020 TacchiniEdizioni launched A.D.A.: uncomplicated, the lamp’s anatomy is formed by two truncated cones joined by a plate. Its strength derives from the material: tinted fiberglass which, illuminated from within, is translucent and offers a glimpse of the fibers from which it is made, lending texture to the light.