One of the great masters of Italian design. The youngest of the three Castiglioni brothers, Achille, also studied architecture at Milan Polytechnic, taking his diploma in 1944, the year he joined the practice run by his two elder brothers, Livio and Pier Giacomo. The two younger Castiglionis made an ideal team, developing many designs together. In 1957 the exhibition "Colori e forme nella casa d'oggi" was mounted at the Villa Olmo in Como. Pier Giacomo and Achille Castiglioni were particularly successful with the lamps they designed for Arredoluce, Artemide, and especially Flos.
Achille Castiglioni's designs are notable for the playful way in which defamiliarization and a striving for minimal form are united. Function ranks above aesthetics yet Achille Castiglioni always believed that a good designer object had to be both functional and beautiful. Achille Castiglioni's philosophy of design is summed up in the following statement he once made: "So sophisticated and so simple "I like that!". Achille Castiglioni was a professor of industrial design at Turin Polytechnic between 1970 and 1980. From 1982 until 1986 he taught spatial design and industrial design at Milan Polytechnic. Numerous works by Pier Giacomo und Achille Castiglioni are in the collection owned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
