I remember going to Magistretti’s studio to talk about him designing a new handle. Sitting around a big table that practically took up the entire room, he sketched the Sibilla right before my eyes, practically fixing its definite form there and then. His idea was to make it an ergonomic object that also had verve. As he described how interesting he found the shape of a bone, he steadily drew one. Soon after, he began musing about how the dynamic effect he wished to obtain for the handle could be expressed by slicing off the two extremities. Seeing that they weren’t symmetrical, the cuts needed to have different inclinations. “Try to make a sample along the lines of these sketches,” he said to me. “Let’s see if you succeed in expressing my idea.” By the third prototype, he was satisfied. Sibilla was born. This is how Vico liked to work. He sought immediate answers from technicians so that his ideas would be made to their best potential.
Antonio Olivari
